RSS feed belong to a group of web feeds that are used to publish updated contents such as blog entries, new headlines, or podcasts. An RSS document contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. This format is extremely useful because it allows users to keep a tab or list of all their favorite websites that shows the most recent items changed or added on those websites, rather than having to check each site manually.

In Moodle, RSS feeds are usually used to display the latest headlines from a certain news website, though they can also be used to show the most recent updates from any site with an RSS feed.

Setting up an RSS feed
In Editing mode, choose Remote RSS Feed from the pull-down menu in the Add Blocks block.

Click on the button with a hand and pencil ("Configuration") which appears in the new RSS block.

The configuration page will show a list of all the shared RSS feeds. Check to see if the feed you want is on this page. If the feed you are looking for is on the page, check the box next to it. You can pick multiple feeds.

At the top and bottom of the list of feeds are a few options. You can choose whether you want to show descriptions of each headline, pick the number of headlines you want to appear in the list, name your RSS feed so that students know what it is, choose to display a link to the actual news site in addition to each article, or decide to show the site’s logo.

Adding new Feeds

If the set of headlines you would like to display on your page is not to be found in the list, then you need to click on the tab at the top that says Manage All My Feeds.

Manage all my Feeds allows you to add other feeds. If the feed you want is still not to be found on this page, scroll to the bottom of the page.

In the "Add a News Feed URL" space you can put the RSS feed link (instructions on how to get this later).

Name your feed so that people will understand what it is.

If you want to make your feed readily available to others on Moodle, click the box next to Shared Feed.

How to find the RSS feed link

Most news sites now allow for RSS feeds, and will have a small box link (probably near the bottom of the page) that looks like this: 

Click on the link.

If the newspaper has multiple sets of headlines, like the New York Times, this will take you to a page with a list of different RSS feeds and the links that go with them. Click on the appropriate RSS Feed link.

On the page that appears, ignore the page content and copy instead the address in the address bar. The address will look something like this: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Business.xml

The address at the top, once copied, can be pasted into the aforementioned "Add a News Feed URL" slot in the Manage all my Feeds tab.