Web 2.0 technology has had a great impact on my learning. These tools have made using the web faster and easier than ever before. When I first got access to the Internet everything was much slower. Checking up on my favorite web sites was a very slow process, but thanks to RSS feeds that has all changed.
RSS has made learning and absorbing information easier and faster. I can quickly be updated on all of the web sites I visit frequently. I first learned about RSS on some of the technology shows I watched regularly like The Screen Savers on TechTV. I did not see any need for it at that time. I was too lazy to set things up. Also, at that time RSS was not as widespread as it is today. I finally decided to try out RSS when I started watching more podcasts three or four years ago. This made downloading content much easier and faster. I saw the full potential of RSS when I started using Google Reader to get an updated view of all my favorite web sites.
Readers like Google Reader make viewing the web a whole different experience. I can quickly glance at 10 or 15 articles in a matter of just seconds or minutes, saving me a great deal of precious time. This greatly impacts the way I learn. Ever since using RSS I have noticed I expect to get the information I need quick and easy. Sites that have no RSS feeds seem old and out of date. I still visit them, but I prefer they had a feed to subscribe to. About 70 to 80% of the sites I visit have some sort of RSS feed to subscribe though. I predict this number will continue to go up over the next couple years.
RSS has become a critical part of the web. It has affected my learning in every aspect. I hope in the future more use of the RSS technology is used for online courses. If you are not using RSS I would highly recommend it. Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari and IE all have addons and tools built in to read RSS feeds. There are also online tools like Google Reader that can read RSS feeds.
4 comments:
I have never subsribed to any RSS feeds before, but it sounds as if I may need to have a closer look at some of the sites that I frequent often. A preview of them would save me the time of going to each individual site, only to see that there is no new content.
I don't really use RSS either, but I do see the potential benefits to having that capability handy. I may look into it if I start using more sites, but for now I'll stick with what I've been doing.
I can see how it would be useful, especially for people who subscribe to a lot of sites. Instead of having to go to each site individually and scroll through all of the text, you can have it all in one easy-to-access location. It seems to be the way most things on the Web are going.
I didn't really use RSS feeds until just recently. There aren't very many websites that I check often, but I decided that it would be beneficial for me to make a habit of reviewing a set of sites on a regular basis. When I get busy, it is easy for me to not keep up with the news or other important information.
To help keep me informed, I decided to set up an iGoogle page. This page comes up every time I open Firefox and has RSS feeds from various news sites and all of the blogs that I follow. It certainly makes it a lot easier for me to quickly review any new content.
The main reason I decided to use RSS was to save time. Being able to process new information quicker and saving time is one of RSS's main benefits.
I used to use iGoogle, but I switched to using Feedly (an addon for Firefox). The main reason I like iGoogle was for the RSS view, but I prefer the way Feedly looks. However, I've had some problems with RSS feeds updating correctly, so I might switch back. Or just use Google Reader's normal interface.
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