RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, but is also known as Really Simple Syndication. You don’t really need to know that. What you do need to know is that an RSS Feed Reader can make you better informed and help keep you current in select areas of your choice, with very little effort from you.
The basic way the RSS Feed Reader works is to aggregate, or pull together, into one site, often with a short digest or introduction various new postings to the blogs you have subscribed to. It then sends the list to your email daily.
For instance I have subscribed to this blog, Adult Studies Faculty, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, Leadership Intelligence, Tools to Lead, Educause/Learning Analytics, Presentation Zen, Tablet Pedagogy, and others. Each day I receive an email with the title and an introductory sentence from any new posts to these blogs. It is rare that there are more than four titles listed. Here is the key: I don’t have to go find them, I don’t have to even read them if they don’t interest me. the ones that do interest me, I click on and go right to the post.
There are a LOT of RSS Feed Readers and you can research them on your own. I use Bloglovin’ (www.bloglovin.com) because it is easy to use and isn’t too complicated. This is an area where I don’t need complicated, just something reliable and easy to use.
The process works like this: once you have signed up for your RSS Feed Reader, you can explore the list of Blogs from their long list and add any you like to your subscription list. If you run across a Blog not listed (such as this one) simply go back to your RSS Feed Reader and add it. In Bloglovin’ I click on the heart at the top of the page, select Edit the Blogs You Follow, click on Add Blog and paste the web address into the dialogue box which pops up. Bloglovin’ does the rest and I start getting updates. No other maintenance or attention is required.
Give it a try. Find a few Blogs which appeal to your interest and see if you don’t learn something new.
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