RSS Benefits
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an application that allows people to subscribe to online distributions of news, blogs, podcasts, or other online information. Rather describe how it works in text format, watch this 4 minute short video .
Individual Benefits
The big benefit to RSS is you can opt-in to content of interest, totally controlling the flow of information that you receive. If the quality of the content in the feed declines, you simply remove the feed from your RSS reader and you will not receive any additional updates from that source. The RSS reader acts as an aggregator, allowing you to view and scan multiple content streams in a timely fashion.
School District Benefits
RSS is a great supplemental communication method that does not burden the school district with maintaining lists. RSS feeds are compiled according to the citizen’s choices. Do you have an RSS feed on your district website? For those that do not have the staff, skills, or time to create the XML feeds, there are third party services that will create RSS feeds for a fee. With these new services, all the necessary components are in place and RSS is growing in use and popularity. Many constituents may now subscribe to and read RSS news feeds on a regular basis, meaning a school district’s RSS feed could be seamlessly slipped into their established collection of feeds. The message – RSS is now able to add value to community communications.
Better than email, RSS feeds will not fall victim to spam filters and subscribers can remain anonymous and in control, ensuring no delivery is unsolicited. RSS feeds could be considered the evolution of a school district’s print or e-newsletters. However, RSS does not replace e-mail, which offers one-to-one communication, sophisticated tracking options, and more intimate communication channels. The key difference is that RSS feeds are generalized to a public or targeted audience, but email has the potential to be customized per recipient.
The best evidence of the value I get from RSS is that I cannot imagine being without it anymore. How else could I possibly monitor 100+ sources with the same time and energy I would need to monitor 5 sources?
Take Action
If you are not a RSS user currently try the following:
1. Select a RSS Reader
I use Google Reader but there numerous other choices available.
2. Oversubscribe
I’m a big believer in subscribing to anything that looks of interest. Read what you can and don’t worry about the rest. The chances that you’ll see something worthwhile in a feed are far, far higher if you’ve subscribed to it than they would have been if you hadn’t.
The world of the web is a raging river; any fear you have of sticking your toe in a big, fast current is no reason to spend all your time in a tiny stream instead, in hopes perhaps that you can drink all the water.
I don’t know why people feel obligated to read every item in every feed they’ve subscribed to. Get over that and you’ll already be a far happier person. Many people say they find relief knowing that with enough subscriptions, anything important that they missed will come up again later. Other people oversubscribe and then just read “watch lists” – searches for keywords inside their subscribed feeds. Some feed readers make this easy.
3. Try a River of News View
Some feed readers require that you click through all of one feed’s items at a time. Others allow you to see whatever individual items are most recent, regardless of what source feed they came from. This is the preferred method of most news bloggers – but it could serve you well too. There’s no way to read every item in every feed you’ve subscribed to, so after reading what’s most important – try switching to what’s most recent!
Try reading those items in order of appearance, until you don’t want to read them any more. Then stop. Maybe mark all as read, maybe don’t worry about it. Life’s too short to worry about it, aren’t you glad you read what you were able to find the time to read?
Suggested Sites for RSS feeds (look for the RSS icon to subscribe after you have set up your RSS reader)
- Education Experts
- Education Week District Dossier
- Education Week Leader Talk
- NPR Education Topics
- National School Board Associations BoardBuzz
- US Department of Education
- The McMahon Group
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