Its
been quite a while since a technology "blew me away" but last Friday
I had one of those Eureka moments while riding the bus from downtown Vancouver
to White Rock where I live - all because of RSS feeds & blogs. I'm still
exploring and digging deeper into RSS but let me share the chronicle so far.
I've
been wanting to investigate RSS feeds ever since I heard Stephen Downes talk
about them at the IMS Technical Forum in February. Stephen's IMS presentation
is available at:
http://www.imsglobal.org/otf/vancouver/
Of
course the first challenge is deciphering the tech talk. What the heck does RSS
stand for anyway? So, lets get some of the technical aspects out of the way up
front.
Standing
for Rich Site Summary (RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication depending
on who you talk to), RSS is a kind of Extensible Markup Language (XML)
application that adheres to the World Wide Web Consortium's Resource
Description Framework (RDF). From an application point of view RSS is widely
used as a method of "feeding" (distributing, syndicating) news or
other web content from an online publisher to web users.
Headline
news is only one form of content that can be distributed with an RSS feed. The
most exciting use may turn out to be weblog (blog) feeds. And what is a "blog"?
According
to http://www.whatis.com,
"On a Web site, a blog, a short form for weblog, is a personal journal
that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs
generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site and its
purpose. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on
Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors.
The essential characteristics of the blog are its journal form, typically a new
entry each day, and its informal style. The author of a blog is often referred
to as a blogger. People who post new journal entries to their blog may often
say they blogged today, they blogged it to their site, or that they still have
to blog."
If
you want to know more about the weblog phenomena you've got to read "We've
Got Blog - How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture", from the editors of
Perseus Publishing. Quoting from this book, weblogs are typically "a
mixture in unique proportions of links, commentary, and personal thoughts and
essays." Weblogs are pithy. Longer commentary is often done as a separate
essay. I think of these e-learning columns I write as essay form weblogs.
But
all these definitions don't do justice to the full character of weblogs.
"We've Got Blog" gives the full spectrum of weblog evolution over
time. Wildly popular weblogs can be stream of consciousness and personality
infused like:
http://www.peterme.com,
or
http://www.robotwisdom.com
Weblogs
are frequently irreverent.
While
weblogs are a form of personal publishing, increasingly people are using them
as part of their media coverage. Some media organizations have begun to treat
weblogging as a form of journalism. See:
http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor
Picking
up the thread on RSS, publishing content, such as news headlines or weblogs,
involves creating an RSS XML file describing the content being published and
identifying specifically where that content is on the web server. This RSS file
is essentially made up of meta data and sits on the web server along with the
content. RSS aggregators are then able to read the RSS files, aggregate the
content, and distribute it as a syndicated feed to users.
Instead
of me having to seek out a website I subscribe to feeds which appear
automatically at set intervals of time - say every hour.
To
receive a syndicated feed you need a web browser and it helps to have one of
the free special aggregator programs that read RSS-distributed content and
periodically downloads the latest news, blogs, or whatever you are interested
in.
Enough
tech talk for now, back to the chronicle, ...
After
hearing Stephen Downes my interest was heightened even further when Brian Lamb,
a University of British Columbia learning object coordinator, and professional
colleague I admire, waxed eloquently on the way RSS feeds allow him to keep up
with his field. Brian had even started his own blog and now networked with
others doing the same thing. Brian pointed me to a David Wiley link called
"A Beginners Guide to Joining the Instructional Technology Blog
Scene". See http://www.reusability.org/blogs/david/archives/
Others
pointed me to Stephen Downes paper "An Introduction to RSS for Educational
Designers" at http://www.downes.ca/files/RSS_Educ.htm
Finally
a couple of weeks ago I'm like OK, OK let me try it! So following the David
Wiley guide I downloaded Amphetadesk, the free, cross-platform, open sourced,
syndicated news aggregator, see http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk.
I removed channels that came with the download and subscribed to education
technology channels David Wiley lists in his .opml file. And that's all I had
time for. I didn't even have a chance to check out what the feeds were
generating.
That
evening I was catching a Translink bus from downtown Vancouver out to White
Rock where I live, and by chance had nothing to read on the hour long ride. In
the absence of a book or a newspaper I turned on my laptop and opened up the
Amphetadesk aggregator. Wow! For the next hour I lost myself in a smorgasbord
of ideas, notes, and discoveries as I checked out the rich musings of the
educational technology weblogs I had downloaded.
Of
course on the bus I'm off-line and can't explore embedded follow-on links for
more information. But still I was blown away. Collectively the blogs filter
news and developments in my domain. More importantly they provide thoughtful
commentary, alternative views, interpretation, and additional facts. I enjoyed
the camaraderie of the weblog community, the astute observations, the readiness
to share.
I
delighted in the character and personality of each weblog and began to select
ones I wanted to track on an ongoing basis. I wanted to know more about each of
the writers. I plan to follow:
D'Arcy
Norman's musings in the Learning
Commons Weblog
Brian
Lamb's Object
Learning and
Scott
Leslie's EdTech
Post
Of
course after that bus ride home I've since been online and explored the full
depth weblog links and discussion enable. I've also become intrigued by the
implications and potential of RSS and weblogs for online learning.
We
know one of the most successful forms of e-learning is collaborative learning
done online through social interactive discussion. Weblogs build off of this
successful model as a dynamic form of e-learning content and an engaging
e-learning experience.
Julian
Dibbell in the We've Got Blog chapter, "Portrait of the Blogger as a Young
Man", says that weblogs at their most interesting "are constructed
from and pay implicit tribute to a peculiarly contemporary sort of
wonder."
Certainly
describes it for me. Hmmm, I wonder how I can get my own RSS fed weblog going?
Paul
Stacey, is an e-learning specialist in corporate and higher education working
in Simon Fraser University's
eLearning Innovation Centre (eLINC). Paul helps host & produce LearningTimes
an online community for education professionals. Contact: Paul
Stacey
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Stacey
E-Learning: An
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commercial value of e-learning in BC’s high tech sector.
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Archive: an index and links to all the E-learning columns Paul has written
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