How to get a News Feed into your WebCT Course

Incorporating a newsfeed into your WebCT course is a great way to get dynamic, changing content into the password protected environment of WebCT.Potential uses include creating an up to date 'breaking information' news source for your class. Thanks to Michelle and Brian for the proof of concept.

I used mine to let students know when marks were posted, when tutorials were scheduled and any last minute changes to content, etc. I also posted the links to sites visited in class. Other uses could include posting notes presented that day, answers to questions asked in class, quiz results and many others.

My WebCT RSS channel looks like this:

Technical requirements: Low

Time required:  under an hour

Tasks: create an 'organiser page' in WebCT, complete and submit WebForms, identify RSS feed

Prerequisites: A WebCT course

1)  Creating an RSS feed. One of the easiest ways to create an RSS feed is to have your weblog create one for you. (if you ever needed a reason to start a blog, this is it)!  Most of the flavours of weblogs create an RSS feed concurrent with posting your latest missive onto your blog.

You need to get a blog and start creating content! I like Radio Userland (30 day free trial period) and Manila.  Others include Movable Type (which just announced a hosting service).

2)  Locate your RSS feed. Once you have created an entry or two, you should locate your RSS feed. In Radio Userland, it is at /rss.xml. In Frontier, you can find it at http://yourblogaddress/blogname/rss/rss.xml.

It should look like this.

3) Render the RSS.  Copy the URL and then head over to one of many RSS renderers available on the web. This is the first one I tried (recommended by Adam Curry), and it does a fine job. Paste your URL into the utility, set your parameters and press submit.

*voila*. It generates Javascript ready to be imported into your WebCT course (or put anywhere).   Copy this code to your clipboard.  My code looked like this:

"<"SCRIPT language=javascript src="http://publish.curry.com/rss/rss-box.r?url=http://www.sitegeist.com/biol112/rss.xml&align=left&width=200&frameColor
=black&titleBarColor=%23add8e6&titleBarTextColor=black&boxFillColor=white&
amp;textColor=black&fontFace=&maxItems=7&compact=&
xmlButton=&javascript=true"> "

4)  Add it to your WebCT course.  Navigate to your WebCT course, create an organizer page and click on 'add header text'. Paste the Javascript into the text area and press update.

5)  Go Crazy.  That is it - you should now have a RSS feed within your course. Go crazy - update your weblog daily!

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 <--Use this link to get this page into your own WebCT course as a Learning Object!
Powered by
RSSify at WCC

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Find out more with these related links!

http://www.ibritt.com/resources/wp_rss.htm  A very rich set of references about WebCT and integration with emerging technologies.

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/w-rss.html  Everything you need to know about RSS (IBM site)