A person on one of these lists wrote to me:
Your assignment sounds great! I don't have an answer because I don't know what a wiki is! Can you please explain that and the RSS Feed term to me? I know you're tech saavy! Thanks.
Perfectly sensible questions. I should have explained in my first message. A wiki is just a space on the internet to which multiple people can contribute content. (The term derives native Hawaiian term for "quick.") Wikipedia is the "classic" example -- encyclopedia entries written, rewritten, and rewritten again by various people with the knowledge and the desire to do so. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
The wiki I have in mind would be restricted only to members of my class and me.
RSS (for "really simple syndication") is a technology that allows producers ("feeders", "syndicators") of internet content to communicate with people who want to receive that content ("readers," "subscribers") on a regular basis. So, for instance, I produce a weekly podcast. I make a "feed" file file (in XML) that announces the existence of the podcast, and I modify it every week when a new episode is made available. Those who want to hear my podcast, subscribe their RSS reader (e.g., iTunes) to the podcast so that it wil read my feed file regularly (e.g., hourly, daily, weekly) to see if it has chaged since the last time it read the feed file. If the feed file has changed, the reader downloads the new episode. The same can be done for kinds of content other than a podcast -- news items, weather reports, blog entries, etc.
The upshot here is that, instead of my having to remember to check your website every so often to see if there is new content, my RSS reader will do it for me automatically, and download new content to my computer whenever it finds it.
Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-5115 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo ====================================== --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
