Although I love Personal Information Portals and RSS feeds, I wasn’t able to focus on this blog post until I got through the last couple of weeks before vacation! No snow days have been a killer! I discovered personal information portals and RSS feeds a couple of years ago and set up a iGoogle page at that time. I like that I can have a separate tab for each facet of my life! On my library tab, I set up RSS feeds for a number of library gurus, tech gurus, and educational gurus. Through trial and error I did realize that some blogs’ RSS feeds didn’t work using iGoogle, so I set up Google Reader. I always try iGoogle first; if it doesn’t work I try Google Reader.
Last year I had the juniors and seniors set up iGoogle pages (many already had them), so that they could utilize the RSS feeds available from the library subscription databases. I was hoping they would embrace this “push technology.” I tell them once they have all the RSS feeds set up it’s one stop shopping! I had them practice the RSS feeds with the sports section of the Post Star and with Scott Westerfeld’s blog. Once they did this we hit the databases and practiced using the MagillOnLiterature RSS feeds for The Great Gatsby. We did learn the EBSCO feeds were easily added to the iGoogle pages, but we had to set a Google Reader for the Gale product’s RSS feeds. To be honest a few of the students understood the power of the RSS feeds, others not so much. Those that did use the RSS feeds during their senior research project definitely understood how the RSS feeds streamlined the gathering of sources for them. The seniors used them again this year, with a short review of how the RSS feeds work. I think this year they had a better understanding of the technology. I’ll also have the juniors set up iGoogle pages and use the RSS feeds when they start their research project.
