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21st September 2005

What IS RSS?

posted in blogs, literacy |

My Microcomputer Applications students this term helped me design and gather resources for a short 6 minute animated movie I created this evening, entitled “What is RSS?” Another title for this short film could be, “How Do I Find the Information I Want?” The animated movie “Get Creative” from Creative Commons was our inspiration for this project.

We designed and storyboarded this animated narrative with the goal of helping any teacher, regardless of how technology oriented or non-oriented he or she might be, understand RSS technology and why it is a great tool to utilize with a free aggregator like Bloglines.

Download this file in QuickTime format: what-is-rss2.mov (4.3 MB)

Tips

  • Windows IE users should right-click the link above and choose SAVE TARGET AS, Mac users control-click and choose SAVE TARGET AS or DOWNLOAD LINKED FILE to save the file to your computer’s hard drive.
  • Free QuickTime player software is required to view and play this animated movie.
  • The syntax for the customized Google news search feed mentioned in the movie is:

http://news.google.com/news?q=%22laptop+initiative%22&output=rss

Feel free to share this resource with others who may be interested in RSS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Tools used to create this animated movie included a Macintosh Powerbook, iMovie, Garageband, PowerPoint, PhotoShop, QuickTime Pro, and KeyWebX. Websites utilized included Partners in Rhyme Royalty Free Music and Sound Effects, Creative Commons Search, Yahoo Creative Commons Search, and Google Image Search.

On this day..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 at 3:41 am and is filed under blogs, literacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 3 responses to “What IS RSS?”

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  1. 1 On September 22nd, 2005, AHF said:

    Thanks for this info! Altho I’ve been using Newsfire for almost a year, I’ve not understood RSS in this way. You did make it “Really Simple” after all. I’m amazed at all the tools used to create this movie. Could it have been done without a Mac?
    Some of your sound effects are quite creative. :)

  2. 2 On November 20th, 2005, Dean Shareski said:

    The connectivity of the read/write web is amazing. I just did a workshop here in Canada on RSS and even did a screencast. As part of my talk, I used the analogy of a party as a way to describe how I felt about the people I read in my aggregator.

    I also tried to share with the participants that the best way to find “new friends” is by the links you get from others. That’s how I ended up here. A “friend” sent me here and I’m glad they did.

    Not only to I plan to use your video on a talk I’m giving on Monday, but I’ll be “popping by” on a regular basis to check up on your good stuff.

    Thanks.

  3. 3 On March 22nd, 2006, Tamera Terndrup said:

    Excellent presentation! It is very easy to understand and I think I will share this with our staff at the Freshman School.