Moodle RSS Feeds

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Moodle has a block which allows you to capture outside RSS feeds or podcasts. For example, if you are teaching a health course, it might be helpful to add or subscribe to the New York Times Health UpDate podcast to your Moodle course. Podcasts are generally free from online providers and automatically update content.

I. Pulling a RSS Feed into your course.

• From the homepage of your course, Turn Editing On.
• Click on Add an Activity... and choose, Remote RSS Feeds.

• This gives you a new block to edit. Click on either the hand with the pen or the Click Here message to open.

2. Finding an external RSS feed's URL.

• Open up a new browser window and go to Google. Search for the type of podcasts you want.

• Choose any of the links that looks promising and you'll be taken to a list of feeds available. Look for the words RSS, XML or Pods and click on it.

• You will be taken to a page of code. Ignore the code and copy the URL at the top in the Location box. The URL should end in .xml, since it should be that type of file.

III . Configure your RSS feeds.

• Go back to your Moodle course. Click on the tab called Manage all my feeds. Paste the URL you just copied into the Add a news feed URL box. Then add a title underneath. Click Add.
• Continue this process until you have as many RSS feeds as you like.

• Click on Configure this block. Your RSS feeds won't show up on your homepage until you have made them available. Check the boxes beside the feeds that you would like to make available. Leave the title box empty (which will leave Remote News Feed in place) or change it to whatever you want and change the remaining settings to yes or no. Click Save Changes.

• Your RSS block will then have a link which will go to whatever data, audio or video, that the content provider pushes from their site. It will change automatically from the originating site. Students may need QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or another type of player to hear or see the content.

IV. Pushing out RSS Feeds for Moodle Forums and Glossary

Your students or others may be interested in putting your Moodle forums or glossary tool in their own RSS reader. You can accomodate that by altering the settings in these two tools.

• Click on a forum from your homepage and then click Update this Forum. Scroll down to the RSS settings and choose either Discussions or Posts. Then choose a number at Number of RSS recent articles. If you leave it at zero, you won't get the RSS link. Click Save Changes.

• You'll then be taken back to your discussion forum

• If your student clicks on the RSS feed, they can then copy the url at the top of the page and paste it into a RSS reader.