How are you managing your information overload?

If you are having trouble keeping up with the wealth of information that is published daily on the Web, fear not my friend, for I introduce you to...RSS, Really Simple Syndicate; your new best friend. 

RSS is a behind the scenes code (XML) called a “feed” which allows users to subscribe to content on a particular blog.  No longer will you have to visit a blog itself. Now with RSS you can do one stop reading.  An aggregator or “feed collector” is the tool designed to follow the subscribed feeds and collect and update any new content.  Now subscribers can follow their feeds at one location. There are many aggregators to choose from, see  Aggregators Directory.  The great thing about any aggregator that you select is that as long as you have internet access your feeds are available to you – anytime, anywhere.

Google Reader is the one I selected to collect my subscribed feeds.  It was easy to set up, no cost to the user and it offers a number of user friendly features.  Google Reader allows users to read what they want when they want; read now, file for later, delete or even click directly to the site.

 Google Reader:

Note in the above picture that the feed name appears in the list on the left hand side of the screen.  New content is bold with the number of unread posts in brackets. The right hand side of the screen displays new content for reading purposes.

Helpful hints:

·         don’t start with too many feeds or you will get overwhelmed

·         create new folders to keep organized

·         highlight posts with the “starred” feature

·         tag posts to keep track of information

Caution: not every site on the Web has RSS feeds

Readings:

Richardson, W., (2010) Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms,
(3rd edition.).Thousand Oaks, CA, Corwin