So far I've emphasized RSS content from blogs (since the focus here is on running a student blog network), but you can also use Inoreader to collect and redisplay content from other RSS sources. In this post, I'll show how you can use the bookmarking service Diigo to generate RSS content.
Diigo Bookmarks
I wrote a post here earlier about some basic Diigo bookmarking features, including how you can snag thumbnail images for the items you bookmark: Blogs and Diigo. See that posts for how to use Diigo to bookmark web content.
In this post I'll focus on how you can subscribe to Diigo RSS and then mix that content in with other content in Inoreader, exporting it to your class website or to an LMS.
Diigo RSS
At the bottom of every Diigo display page, including search results, you will see the RSS icon, which you can click to get the RSS feed. The icon is to the right of the display options:
For example, here is the RSS feed address for the items that I've tagged with #ungrading:
https://www.diigo.com/rss/user/lauragibbs?key=d6f0bfedadf90c44b2909bdea8e9f77e&query=%23ungrading&sort=updated
It's a scary-looking URL and the contents are not user-friendly either, but that's exactly what Inoreader needs in order to turn that RSS feed into an Inoreader display, like this:
It's just like the feed for a student blog, except this time the RSS is coming from Diigo. One thing to note is that it does not update as quickly as a blog feed does (I think Inoreader pings the feed every hour), but you can hit the manual refresh button if you want Inoreader to ping the feed for the latest results.
Inoreader Export for Diigo RSS
So, just like you can export student blog content using HTML Clippings, you can do the same with these Diigo bookmarks that Inoreader grabs via the RSS. Why would you want to do that? Well, Diigo is one of those sites that blocks the use of iframe to embed Diigo inside another site. That means if you want to display Diigo bookmarks inside a website or inside the LMS, you need to use a service like Inoreader to do that.
So, in the same way that I embed the student blog stream in Canvas, I can display a Diigo bookmark stream in Canvas also. Here's a Canvas display of Diigo bookmarks related to feedback for example:
Anywhere that you can embed an iframe, you can embed Inoreader content... which includes Diigo bookmarks. Even the thumbnail image shows up. Diigo is a powerful tool, and with Inoreader you can share your Diigo content more widely and in new contexts!
So, Diigo is one of my favorite non-blog RSS sources, and next up I'll provide a quick overview of more RSS content sources: News, Podcasts, Padlet, and more.
