Technology Tips: Google Reader

Google Reader is an online tool that helps you keep up with news, blogs and any kind of website that has frequently changing content which is available via an RSS feed. You may already be familiar with RSS if you have added an RSS feed to your Ning page; I've got a list of some class-related and OU-related RSS feeds here. For this assignment, you will add at least one feed to your Google Reader.

STEP ONE: Access Google Reader. You should already be logged in to Gmail or some other Google service. To get started with Google Reader, just go to Reader.Google.com. You will see no subscriptions yet in the left-hand panel, but by the end of this assignment you will have added at least one subscription.

STEP TWO: Find Feeds.  Now you need to find some RSS feed(s) that you want to subscribe to with Google Reader.

OU- and Class-related Feeds. You might want to choose from some class-related and OU-related RSS feeds here, or perhaps there is a news website or other online source you want to subscribe to.

Feeds at your favorite websites. Many websites with RSS feeds will display a little "broadcast" icon in the browser bar which lets you know you can subscribe to the feed just by clicking on that broadcast icon. Here's the broadcast icon in the browser bar for the New York Times website, for example - you can subscribe just by clicking on that icon. Sometimes there are various options to choose from, based on whether you want to subscribe to specific streams of content, comments, etc:

STEP THREE: Add feed. When you either click on a broadcast icon or click on a direct link to an RSS feed (like this link for the OU Daily RSS feed for example), you will be prompted to add the feed to Google Reader. Click on the button to add the feed to Google Reader:

Alternatively, you can cut-and-paste the feed address (NOT the webpage address, but the feed address - for example, http://oudaily.com/rss/headlines/news/) into the Add Subscription option inside Google Reader itself:

STEP FOUR: Confirm subscription.  You will see a preview of the feed, along with a button to confirm your subscription. Click on the Subscribe button to confirm your subscription:

STEP FIVE: Send item via email to instructor. To finish this assignment, you need to use the email option to send me one of the items from the feed you have subscribed to. So, choose one of the items, and then click on the Email icon that appears at the bottom of the item (if you don't see these icons, it is because you are not viewing the fully expanded item; just click on the item bar to expand it). When prompted, enter my address, laura-gibbs@ou.edu, and make sure you CHANGE the Subject Line of the email to read as follows: TechTip Google Reader. Click on "Send" to send the email.

When you have sent in the email, you can do the Gradebook Declaration for Extra Credit. Here is the text of the Gradebook Declaration you will complete: