Competency 4: RSS Feed

This week’s competency requires me to select and add an RSS feed to my blog. The step-by-step instructions included in Course Documents were very clear and user-friendly. I followed the instructor’s suggestion to go to the ALA homepage and select the RSS feed and add it to my blog. After completing the process, I decided to explore other available RSS feeds related to my chosen blog topic. I went to Google and typed in “rss feeds school libraries” and chose the first link listed “RSS Feeds on School Library Journal” http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/learnRss. There I discovered a plethora of school library RSS news feeds. I scrolled through the list and ultimately decided to include “School Library Journal Technology News” http://feeds.feedburner.com/SchoolLibraryJournal-TechnologyNews . I chose this one over “School Library Journal Education Technology News” and “School Library Journal Education News” because some of the topics listed have a direct correlation to the technologies, such as “Social Bookmarking” and “Microblogging”, which I believe have the potential to impact our school libraries and the ever-changing role of the school librarian.

In the course of my search, I also came across a very informative blog created by Helene Blowers, a school librarian in the California School Library Association. In her blog, she explains RSS and outlines an RSS project for her students. In it she outlines steps for her students to set up their own RSS feed reader. She includes some very helpful links on the topic including:

Using Bloglines Tutorial

YouTube on how to add feeds.

Google Reader Tour, video tutorial#1 or #2.
Her final instruction to her student was to create and post a blog about their experience. She tells them, “[If you don’t know what to blog about] think about these questions: What do you like about RSS and newsreaders? How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life? How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?”

I know I’ll be thinking about how my school libraries can utilize this new technology!

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/learnRss (accessed 2/15/09, 1:20 a.m.)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/SchoolLibraryJournal-TechnologyNews (accessed 2/15/09, 1:30 a.m.)

http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/2007/02/8-week-4-learn-about-rss-feeds-and-set.html(accessed 2/15/09 1:35 a.m.)