Use Blogs to Organize the Internet - RSS feeds

Blogs often seem nothing more than a run on personal diary of one person’s ideas and experiences. Blogs offer so much more to students and teachers researching for information. More and more teachers and students own their own computers and use them for student projects and lesson planning. There is an overwhelming amount of information and it is hard to validate and search for relevant and dependable information. A blog in its basic structure offers a way to distribute information using a feature called RSS feeds. Real Simple Syndication. This technology is used the same way that newspapers distribute information. RSS feeds allow readers to setup a personal folder on their own computer and collect information that interests them. Once you the user finds a website you trust and find valuable, if it is created as a blog you can establish a link from the blog to your own computer. Web browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 offer built in systems to setup RSS feeds.
Diane Carver in an article at thecanadianteacher.com talks about using RSS feeds as a learning and teaching tool.

While RSS feeds started as a way to aggregate news into one application, the possible uses for educators go far beyond the basics. According to Stephen Downes, a well-known voice on the subject of the use of blogs and RSS in education, RSS aggregation “provides greater exposure of (education and training resources) to the wider community. Aggregation also promotes the reuse of resources and encourages the development of interoperable resources.”(2) Downes adds that by creating repositories of ‘learning objects’ and making them accessible by RSS feed, educators can capitalize on each others’ work in true collaborative fashion rather than reinventing the wheel. At eLearningOntario for instance, educators and the Ministry of Education are actively working together to build a learning object repository that will include lessons, lesson plans, content for units and more.