Blogs and Blog Readers
When deciding to read and follow several blogs, there are
many RSS feeders to help readers stay organized and place all favorite blog
posts in one place. I chose Feedly as the blog reader that best suits my needs.
I played around with other readers such as Panda and Bloglovin’ to get a feel
of the various types of RSS feeds, how they worked and how to utilize them. I choose
Feedly for several different reasons. Most important was the ease of use. It
took me very little time to become familiar with the features and how it
worked. It was very user friendly. I could enter the ULRs or names of the blogs
I wanted to follow and added them to the feed. It was also easy to place them in various
categories such as book reviews or library news. Having the categories made it
easy to find the articles that I was interested in reading. Feedly also has the
wonderful feature of creating boards of saved articles for future reference. It
also allows users to mark articles to read later or to delete if not
interested. I liked that you could also change the viewing format (list,
magazine or the whole article) for the blog feed. Feedly was extremely user
friendly and could be used successfully for free.
These are the blogs I chose to follow in no particular order and I am looking forward to adding to the list:
Watch. Connect. Read.
Exploring Children’s Literature through Book Trailers
This is a very interesting blog that promotes a variety of
children’s book with book trailers and author interviews. The interviews and
posts are detailed, sharing interesting information about the books reviewed. I
always like exploring new books and this blog posts frequently. The book
trailers could be shared with students when promoting these books. He also
includes a list of blogs he follows.
The Daring Librarian
This blog focuses more on the technology aspect of librarianship,
which is something that is constantly changing, making this a great resource. She
posts about twice a month, but the articles are of high interest. She is an
advocate for librarians using social media, so many of her blog posts contain
many hints and tips on being successful social media users.
The Library Voice
The blog seems to contain a little bit of everything! It
showcases books and how to incorporate technology into the classroom/library. The
author (Shannon Miller) also discusses Follett Destiny, which is very helpful
if your district uses the program. Her posts are long, but have great pictures,
instructions and working links. She also posts frequently and is active in a
variety of social media platforms.
Expect the Miraculous
This is the blog of the Barrows Media Center in Athens, GA. The
blog discusses what is happening in this elementary library and the excellent
use of photos makes the blog very engaging. The librarian incorporates
technology in his lessons, providing wonderful inspiration for librarians. It
is exciting seeing what even the youngest students can accomplish.
Great Kid Books
This blog reviews children’s books for children ages 4-14
years. The author does a terrific job discussing the book and provide pictures
and book trailers if available and occasional author interviews. This would be
a great resource for book talks or selecting books for your library. If you are
searching for a particular type of book, the sidebar has posts sorted by type of book,
age book is appropriate for and awards.
I did set up a tumbler account. This is something new for
me, so there aren’t many posts and I am still searching for great sites to follow.
