Networked Learning/RSS Feeds

Feeds are a form of syndication in which a section of a website is made available for other sites to use. Commonly a regularly updated website will make a feed available so other people can display an updating list of content from it (for example one's latest forum postings, etc.). This originated with news and web-log (blog) sites but is increasingly used to syndicate any information. Web feeds are very useful to people who obtain media and information from a number of online sources as they help the reader to bring all that information into one place (called a news reader) instead of having to manually go to each website to obtain the information.

There are many web services that offer enhancements to web feed generation such as Feedburner, and news readers such as Bloglines that enable you to subscribe to a number of feeds, and there is free newsreader software to install on desktop computers such as FeedReader.

Uses for web feeds

Students can subscribe to a teacher's website and receive updated content to their personal web spaces (blog, start page, news reader).
Teachers can subscribe to their student's personal web spaces and have student's work arrive centrally.
Students can subscribe to each other's feeds enabling them to share resources and perspectives.
Teachers and students can subscribe to other experts in the field, broadening their field of reference, building a personalised reading list, and bringing it back to their teaching and learning contexts.
Librarians can subscribe to feeds relevant to topics taught by the school faculties, and filter information and offer quality assured resources to teaching staff.
Professional development units can subscribe to feeds related to teacher training and filter information and build PD resources for their staff.

More information about web feeds