I'm a Drupal novice. I need to show a list of 4 RSS feed items with a select menu above to change the feed and have the list update (via ajax). I've investigated the Views module a bit but I can't tell if it's what I need. Can someone point me in the right direction? Should I just try to do this with jQuery?
You can do it using views module .
Since you are new to Drupal, try this series of tutorial this should help you up and running with views in no time.