Week 3: RSS Feeds

I've been guilty of surfing the Internet a few times with no real purpose - mostly scrolling down my Facebook news feed to see if anyone has done anything interesting or has posted any cool pictures. Sometimes I go on random websites and bookmark them if they catch my eye so I can come back to them later. To be honest though, I don't usually check my bookmarks that often so most of those sites are eventually forgotten. Not to mention that keeping up with all the information that is out on the Internet can sometimes be overwhelming. 

OCAL. (2008, March 26). RSS Logo [Online Image]. Retrieved from http://www.clker.com/

But what if I told you there's a way to sort out the information that you need and keep up with the headlines, policies, trends, and tools you want to know about? Putting the Internet to work ... for ME (Now that's a thought). RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and many people describe it as a 'news feed' that you subscribe to. Feedly is an RSS reader that provides you with a method of getting relevant and up to date information sent to you for you to read in your own time. It saves you time and helps you to get the information you want quickly after it was published. RSS feeds solve the problems with bookmarking, such as seeing the same information over and over again on sites that don’t update very often or missing information when you forget to check your bookmarks, which is the case for me. 

Hansel. (2013, July 3). "Feedly Logo" [Online Image]. Retrieved from http://hansel.co.in/

One thing I liked about using Feedly was that you can personalize the layout of your feeds and you can add or delete as many subscriptions as you like, depending on how often your needs or interest change. The one problem I had with Feedly, however, was that it wouldn’t let me subscribe to feeds using the icon on my browser toolbar, which is not a big deal since I can always manually input the URL onto the search box on Feedly. Perhaps when I have more time I will explore other readers such as Bloglines, and see which one I’m more comfortable using. RSS readers are a great tool to add to my PLE since they conveniently bring several pieces of information from all over the Internet to one place. Below is an updated diagram of my PLE. I changed the layout of my last PLE and added and ‘organizing’ section to it for Feedly. As I continue to explore new tools, I am sure that my PLE will be constantly updated and forever changing. 

Krahn, A. (CC) 2014

Learning about RSS feeds reminded me of several blogs I used to visit often but forgot about, as I got busier with school and work. I had a great laugh reading Texts from Bennett (which might not be the most appropriate at times, but still hilarious) and looking through the cutest pictures of paper dresses made by a little girl on Fashion by Mayhem. Now that I’ve founds such a great tool to keep me updated on my favourite blogs, I might have to organize my time more wisely so that I can read posts while still be somewhat productive.