Research on RSS and use in education (or any research)

I am presenting on the use of RSS but I need to include a written research paper and I have not found much on the use of RSS specifically. If anyone knows someone doing research in this area, or know of an article that just addresses it, that would be a help to get me started. I have many on Web 2.0 and tools, and the often include RSS but there is no research to show that it is beneficial to use in an educational environment.
I know it is- I also know it is not used a lot and that there is a limited amount of people who use it.
Hopefully, someone has some info that will lead me to more. Sometimes, just one article, can open the door to more.
Thanks!!
Kathy Cercone PT, PhD

Tags: 2.0, RSS, Web

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Cercone on October 14, 2009 at 6:12am

I agree that I think there is more to RSS and the potential for its use. I have found some research- not much. Will make it easy to write but I think I have enough to put it together. I will let you know if I learn more.

Kathy Cercone

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Cercone on December 4, 2009 at 6:56pm

There is a lot to RSS. I just wanted to let you know that my research has found many things that RSS can do. In fact, the feeling is that RSS is a going to be a major force in the future. Read the threads that are below and it will explain what I am working on and once it is done, I can share it.
Kathy

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 8, 2009 at 8:45pm

I've gather RSS feed for elementary bloggers to use as inspiration. Let me know if you want to see what safe RSS sites we use.

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Permalink Reply by Mike O'Hara on October 13, 2009 at 4:38pm

RSS feeds are really only a time saver. You use them so you don't have to constantly check outlets (news sites, blogs, wiki's social networks, pod casts etc.) for new material.

Here is what Yahoo says on it. So do with that what you will.

I don't think there is much to write about as far as the uses go. Even MIT doesn't give much on "how to use it."

There might be larger issues though.

RSS Readers are very sloppy in organizing found material.

Very few people use RSS feeds / very few people know what they are.

I think it is only good for scholarly uses if you use something like Zotero along with it.

Sound like a hard thing to fill a paper on.
Good luck

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Cercone on October 13, 2009 at 4:43pm

I agree, there is no research focused on it. I am presenting on it for Kaplan University- I am faculty there- and we have to write a 10 page research paper for the presentation. I am going to have to focus on web 2.0 and what there is on that as RSS and research is limited. I have some info but not a lot.

Kathy

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 13, 2009 at 5:00pm

Kathy, one more add--it is really important to find feeds that appropriate for K-6. If you use CNN for instance as a feed for an elementary student blog or classroom resource you may end up with a top story about a rape or murder. I looked long and hard for appropriate feeds to use as blog-prompts and came up with a few. You can see them here.

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Cercone on December 4, 2009 at 11:54am

I am actually getting a lot. I use RSS feeds a lot. I create a javascript of my feed on my blog and then, I put the javascript into my course management system and the blog is inside the course. If I teach 2 of the same course, I only update once and it goes to both of my courses.

I have found a lot of useful information on RSS and once I have the paper written, I will hopefully retain the copyright, and I can share what I learned. I am presenting on this at Kaplan University where I teach as an online adjunct.
You are right ,few know what it is. That is something that they are predicting will change. Time will tell.

My paper is too long right now- I have too much info and I am weeding it down to make it what I need for the school (they are publishing it).

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Ira G. Wilson on December 4, 2009 at 10:56am

Will Richardson's book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Tools for Classrooms dedicates an entire chapter to RSS feeds and readers. He absolutely raves about how great they are. I am not convinced, though. I have to wonder whether kids are really going to read what is on the feeds and use it.

Ira G. Wilson
Teacher at Tucson High Magnet School
Blog: 21stcentteachadventures.blogspot.com

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Cercone on December 4, 2009 at 11:36am

Hi Ira,
Thank you for the info. I am writing an article about RSS also as I am presenting to Kaplan University at their Jan. meeting. I actually have material from Will Richardson- I think I have 2 articles that he wrote. I found some good research on it too.

As to the kids- it is really the teacher who needs to do the work with the feeds more than the kids- although they can learn what a reader is when they are ready academically. It depends on the age of the kids. Young children- this may be not be appropriate. I teach college- so I am not one to say the age when it comes to kids and when they are ready.

The potential of feeds and RSS is huge and many say it is the next big thing to evolve in the next few years. I use it a lot for putting in information into my course management system.

My students really enjoy having that info there. A course management system is so closed- it takes several log on's to get into them and then- if you have 2 classes-, there is no cross communication - they run parallel to each other- so you need to post 2 times. That is where RSS saves you a huge amount of time. You post once via a feed and put that feed in both courses and you have both courses updated after writing it once.

You can use Twitter also as it has an RSS feed. Diigo too. They all do.
But, also from my research I found that many teachers do not know what it is and how to use it effectively. That is what I am trying to write on and will be presenting to Kaplan University faculty (I am an adjunct there).

All of that will be in my article too. I have to write the article to accompany the presentation. I debated about doing the presentation because Xmas time is my rest time- but then I decided I wanted to do the research and write the paper- so, here I am.

I will update this site with my information on RSS and how faculty can use it effectively.
Anyone can still add info here if they have it. The more I have, the better the research paper will be.

Thanks

Kathy

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on December 4, 2009 at 4:30pm

I use just a few feeds that come into my student blog, students use them as inspirations for their writing. They are in elementary school so I have to screen for content but I would think having the feeds pushed to high school students could be invaluable, especially if you teach history or science. You could push certain articles to them to read and discuss. What kid wouldn't enjoy this article on 7000 year old cannibals from Discovery News??? (ha)

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Cercone on December 4, 2009 at 5:46pm

I use feeds for all sorts of information like that. Diigo has a way to set up student accounts and you can create a feed of your links. It has some great tools that are great for learning.

Kathy