News Feeds

What is RSS?

RSS is a format for distributing news and headlines on the web. Depending upon who you believe, RSS stands for either Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Web sites that want their content to be available for syndication provide a copy of their content formatted according to RSS standards, which is a subset of XML.

Other web sites can then include the news headlines from those sites as part of their own site (by using scripting), with links to the full version of the story. Individual users can also have RSS content delivered to their desktop by using a news aggregator program.

The ATS RSS News Feeds

ATS has gathered the news feeds of several sites and blogs devoted to educational technology. To stay abreast of new developments in instructional technology, you could visit our page and then click on the stories that interest you. For convenience's sake, we have divided the various feeds into separate pages.

Using RSS in Education

There are many ways that RSS feeds could be used in an instructional setting. Mary Harrsch of the University of Oregon has published an article on some of the possible uses. You may want to read her article to stimulate your thinking about possible uses. The staff of ATS will be happy to meet with you to discuss other possibilites and the technical aspects of using RSS for your instructional needs.