RSS Feeds for Teachers

The way news and information comes at us these days reminds me of a virtual avalanche. It is an overwhelming deluge of information. Ten years ago we sifted through news groups and listservs. Now we have blogs AND all the news to monitor. The problem for a teacher is that you have to keep up with it all somehow and do everything else too. It's hard work and often frustrating trying to make sense of it all. Anyhow, here are some of my tips for dealing with the situation. I have refined the process over the years. It works pretty efficiently.

Get an Aggregator

What's an aggregator? It's a Web based application which keeps your news feeds and blogs organized for you. All you do is configure it to receive the news feeds which you want. It's that simple. About Bloglines describes how an aggregator works and lists the features which you can expect to find.

Using an Aggregator

Education and technology are two of my main interests. So I have my aggregator configured to send me new articles on education and technology from the New York Times as well as several other sources. The aggregator saves me a lot of time because I don't have to scan every web site to find what I am interested in. The aggregator does it for me based on how I have it configured.

I like Bloglines. It works well for me. For other aggregators see Aggregators on the Weblog site here on About.com.

Configuring an Aggregator

It's not complicated at all. You will see simple, step-by step instructions on the aggregator's Web page. You will need to register to create an account. It's free.

Tip: be careful not to check any boxes which will create more SPAM for your email inbox! Sometimes you have to read the fine print carefully to avoid this trap!

Adding Links

One of the features which I like about aggregators is that they look like an email client. Since I am already familiar with that kind of pnael format, using an aggregator is intuitive and easy.

I suggest that you add feeds carefully at first. You know which sites you like to scan for news and information. Start with those sites. As you add more feeds, begin to organize them into groups. It will make it much easier to scan all the feeds efficiently and according to the categories in which you are interested.

As you click on the links which show up in your aggregator, they will drop off the 'current' list. That means that you are always looking at fresh material. No more sifting through inboxes looking for an article either, because you can 'save' any article/link you want.

Aggregators are an efficient way of managing the news and information you need.