Blog Readers
Hello, fellow future school librarians!
After looking into several feed readers, I decided that Feedly was the best option for me! It's actually one of the more popular feed readers, and there are many reasons why! The app is very user-friendly, and the website is very clean and well-organized. Instead of just having all saved websites and blogs together in one place, users can organize them into different feeds, which are like collection folders. The feed reader also organizes recent posts written by these blogs and websites. There's a "Read Later" feature users can utilize if they want to save specific content for another time. In order to search for content, users can do a power search by topic, website, or RSS link. When following sources, users have the choice to integrate other accounts to the feed reader, such as Twitter, Dropbox, and OneNote. Finally, there is also an available AI assistant named Leo, which assists users with filtering content and only showing specifics. However, Leo is a premium feature but is still nice to know about!
As my LSSL portfolio deadline and graduation approaches, I've been researching more and more ideas for my future library. I started on Pinterest and have found some amazing ideas so far; however, I realized that I would like another website or app to help me keep different library blogs organized. That's when I decided to check out different feed readers! A feed reader allows users to follow and organize specific desired content. That way there won't be such an overload when searching for topics! Many feed readers are free and also offer premium plans if needed. Some feed readers are both actual websites and apps. Because of this, users will have access to blogs and other content at any time!
After looking into several feed readers, I decided that Feedly was the best option for me! It's actually one of the more popular feed readers, and there are many reasons why! The app is very user-friendly, and the website is very clean and well-organized. Instead of just having all saved websites and blogs together in one place, users can organize them into different feeds, which are like collection folders. The feed reader also organizes recent posts written by these blogs and websites. There's a "Read Later" feature users can utilize if they want to save specific content for another time. In order to search for content, users can do a power search by topic, website, or RSS link. When following sources, users have the choice to integrate other accounts to the feed reader, such as Twitter, Dropbox, and OneNote. Finally, there is also an available AI assistant named Leo, which assists users with filtering content and only showing specifics. However, Leo is a premium feature but is still nice to know about!
Of course, there are still other feed readers out there that users can choose from. It all depends on what they're looking for when it comes to organizing content. A lot of them also are both websites and apps, such as NewsBlur, Inoreader, Bloglovin', Feeder, and Selfoss. I specifically looked into these feed readers but decided they just weren't for me. Most of them do the same thing as Feedly, but I didn't quite find them as appealing. Bloglovin' almost had my vote since it is set up like social media, but I read reviews that you can get random followers that promote harmful content, and I do not want that near my education blogs at all. There are also web-based feed readers such as The Old Reader, Netvibes, FlowReader, and Feedreader. Again, these have similar features to Feedly, but since I wanted a feed reader that can also be accessed through an app, I didn't pick any of these options. For more information regarding what a feed reader consists of and about these other options, click here: https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/#bloglovin
Here is a list of 5 blogs that I have added into my feed on Feedly. They consist of school library ideas and book reviews I can refer to when developing my collection:
1. DCG Middle School Library: This is a well-presented middle school library blog. I initially decided to follow it because the blog itself was just so appealing, which made me want to make my blog and library website look like it one day! However, as I went through the blog, I realized there are many wonderful resources provided, such as book talks, links to author websites, promotions for collaborative public library events, technology resources, and even awesome teacher resources. The actual blog posts discussed new books that were just released, which was great because I've been interested in reading some of them!
2. Glenthorne High School Library: This is a high school library blog that regularly posts and provides useful information, especially for future librarians to check out! I decided to follow this because there are current book reviews which can help with collection development, and there are sample library lesson plans. This is great to look at if you're stuck on how to teach a specific area of information literacy!
3. Kids' Book Review: As much as I love young adult novels, I thought it was best if I followed some blogs regarding children's literature so I'm prepared for all levels! Kids' Book Review provides books reviews for both children in elementary school and those in middle grades, such as intermediate school. The books are current and diverse. In addition to this, book lists are written as blog posts. These can be beneficial when helping students find books based on similar interests, topics, and/or authors.
4. The MHMS Daring School Library: This blog includes staff and student-created videos. It also includes blog posts about different digital resources students can check out, especially during this time of virtual learning. I also added it to my feeder because just like the DCG Middle School Library blog, it is very appealing, which inspires me to make mine like it in the future (especially with the usage of bitmojis)!
5. The Children's Book Review: I chose to follow this blog because it allows readers to choose what age group they would like to read articles about. That can help me with expanding my book knowledge across all levels. In addition to this, some of the blog posts are more like lists, which again can be used for collection development and even book displays within the library.
I really enjoyed reading the blogs that you shared. There is a lot of helpful ideas and resources out there for new and veteran librarians. I am a kicker for children's literature so I found the Kids' Book review and The Children's Book Review appealing to me. I know that Feedly is the more popular feed readers out there and I really wanted to like it in which I was beginning to but then I turned towards liking Blogslovin', Great post!
ReplyDeleteYour blog post had a lot of useful information and I liked how you added extra background information on the available feed readers. For example in your post you mentioned reading Bloglovin' reviews and learning how it can contain harmful content! I had no idea! Bloglovin' was my choice of feed reader but after finding this out, I will definitely have to keep an eye out for those random followers. Thank you for that extra information!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Solis Book Reviews, I use Bloglovin' and will make sure to stay on top of monitoring my followers, thank you for sharing! I appreciate that you shared these blogs, I also follow similar blogs for inspiration. I especially like blogs that help with collection development, and you shared a couple of those. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI love the design of your blog so much! The dark background with white text really helps my eyes. Also, I decided to go with Feedly as well! I liked the simplified interface and the way that I could search for other blogs by topic. It really made the difference for me as opposed to some of the others that had inappropriate resources come up during my search or just made it very difficult to search for resources in general!
ReplyDeleteYour blog layout is designed beautifully and is very visually appealing! You made a great point about how Feedly allows you to access it through the application version. This is a great recommendation for users who are not around a laptop as often as a hand held device. Your top 5 bloggers are great recommendations as well! I also follow the "Children's Book Review" and have found it very useful and informative. Thank you sharing your insight on blogs and bloggers!
ReplyDeleteThank you for all the information you have shared! It has been very helpful learning information about Bloglovin which is the one that I have used. I enjoyed going over the different blogs you shared. It is very helpful to see other librarians blogs and be able to learn from one another!
ReplyDeleteI chose to use Feedly too! I love how easy it is to navigate, search a new topic, and that the layout is very similar to email. I really enjoyed checking out the blogs you shared, especially since a few were geared for a middle school library. I'm a huge fan of the Daring Librarian but hadn't heard of the DCG Middle School Library blog. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI will have to get to know the AI assistant named Leo! I could have used his expert assistance, but I agree they should offer these services at a lower rate and especially for educators that will get the students hooked. And yes, I did go with Bloglovin because it offered a format similar to social media. Your post was extremely well thought out and organized. I like how you made the main points stand out with the color feature.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed all of your information about the blogs. I chose to use Feedly too and really appreciated how easy it was to navigate. It was user friendly and made me feel comfortable trying to use it. I really liked the blogs you shared.
ReplyDeleteThe Children's Book Reviews blog is a must to visit for sure. The information found in this blog will help keep our collection updated. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDelete