Pageflakes and RSS feeds


 Bringing information to you with RSS feeds

 

 

Our Pageflakes page:

http://www.pageflakes.com/whslibrarian/8328666

 

What is RSS, anyway?

 

What if information you liked to keep up with, came to you, all in one place?  

 

RSS feeds are a way of "tuning" into information and having it delivered to you, rather than you finding it yourself, like getting your magazine or newspaper delivered.

 

It's a way of presenting a "living textbook" of internet feeds to your students. 

 

It's a way for you to "keep up."

 

And as Dean Shareski points out, you start thinking of yourself as part of a larger world, listening to ideas from outside your school, your state, your country.     Watch and listen to his slide show about RSS here:  http://ideasandthoughts.org/2007/05/03/podcast-27-demystifying-rss/

 

RSS means "real simple syndication."

Many sites have RSS feeds, like blogs, news sites, podcasts, etc.

 

Subscribing to RSS:

 

One site you can use to 'subscribe' to RSS feeds is Pageflakes.

 

Other sites that can use RSS feeds to deliver information to you:

 

Netvibe

Bloglines (for blogs)

Google Reader (for blogs)

 

Similar services:  Google alerts sends "alert" emails when new information is posted

 

Will Richardson's tutorial on using RSS feeds gives detailed instructions for subscribing to RSS.

Dean Shareski's tutorial on RSS (also excellent and many links)

 

Tips on using Pageflakes

 

Pageflakes allows you to create your own "page" with constantly refreshed information.  

 

 

Once you set up a Pageflakes account, you can create a page and add two different elements:  flakes, and feeds.

 

Flakes include things like "sticky notes," calendars, to-do lists, photos, or your own "favorite" bookmarks.  

Feeds are RSS feeds from blogs, news sites, news searches, podcasts, etc.--that is, information which is "fed" to your site.

 

When you add a flake or a feed, you are asked to complete the information (like paste in the RSS feed URL) which then creates the "feed."

 

The flakes and feeds can be easily rearranged on the page by dragging and dropping them, and there can be multiple pages on one pageflake.  So if you teach two subjects, and want to have a Pageflake page for each, that is easily done by creating a second page.

 

You can also control how each flake or feed looks, by clicking on the small "edit" line at the bottom of each feed.

 

Ideas for using Pageflakes:

 

1.  If you have students create blogs, use it to monitor all of your student's blogs from one simple site.

2.  Create a pageflake feed of interesting blogs for your grade level team or subject area teachers to share websites and feeds of interest.

3.  Create a pageflake for students for a particular subject being studied.  For example, for a unit in geography on China, subscribe to news feeds, blogs, podcasts and flickr photos relating to China.  This creates a common set of reading materials for students that are constantly current.

4.  Have students create a pageflake for  a particular unit or theme as they are studying it, with recommended blogs and news feeds.

5.  Create a pageflake for yourself of interesting blogs or news feeds on a topic that you want to keep up with and read.

 

To find newsfeeds:

Google News (or news on foreign language Google).   RSS button at the left of the page.

 

To find podcast feeds:

Odeo

Individual podcasting pages

 

Video feeds:

Tips for grabbing a "feed" from YouTube

 

Ways to use this in the classroom:

--Can set up one for a class--add bookmarks, podcasts, messages, to do lists, calendars, etc.

--Each student can create their own pageflake with a topic of interest, current event, etc

--Can have students set up one for the subject area of the class, like art, or science, or math

--Can use it yourself to keep up with blogs you read, or student blogs