Blogs and Blog Readers

 Stepping into the world of blogs can be overwhelming. There are so many on so many different topics and trying to keep up with who publishes when could fill a whole calendar. Fear not! There is a simple and effective tool to organize all the blog content you could want. An RSS feed reader can organize all of the blogs that you want to follow into one easy-to-read feed. In the article by Lidke, she lists seven of the best RSS feed readers on the internet for 2021. I choose to explore Flowreader first and found that it was very glitchy when I was trying to add different blogs by URL. I also did not care for the dashboard interface as it was not broken down by category. I found this to be the case with a lot of the readers. I ended up liking Inoreader the best because of its dashboard. To me, it was more visually appealing and I could see right away what topic a blog was under and if I wanted to the post. I also liked how you could link other things as well like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube feeds. 

Now that you have an RSS feed reader you need content to fill it with. Here are my recommendations for educational blogs:

1. Edutopia.org This blog focuses on many different trends in education and you can easily search by topic for what you are looking to learn more about. It is a K-12 blog so all teachers will find valuable information in the articles. 

2. Freetech4teachers.com A blog all about technology for teachers that is free! It can be so frustrating to learn of a great new application only to learn that you have to pay for it. This site helps you make the most of the free resources out there for teachers. Great site for all teachers no matter the grade level. 

3. SJL.com Blogs The School Library Journal blog is essential for any librarian wishing to keep up with the trends in Library Science and the political landscape around the library. 

4. TheLibraryVoice.com The Library Voice blog is by Shannon McClintock Miller. She is a renowned elementary librarian with tons of great teaching ideas, book and resource reviews, and author interviews. 

5. TrappedLibrarian.org This blog has great ideas for activities for the elementary library. I liked how she broke down what she teaches each month and also how she stays organized. This had a lot of helpful ideas for this new librarian. 

Another blog site out there is Tumblr. Tumblr is a social media platform and an RSS reader rolled into one. All the content however is housed on the Tumblr site and you can not follow things outside of Tumblr on your dashboard. There are lots of great book reviews, display ideas, and just fun library memes on Tumblr as well as blogs. One thing you do have to be careful of on Tumblr is that some users use a lot of profanity and there can also be graphic images (be careful if you search manga 😨) As an adult though I found lots of content I really enjoyed on Tumblr and in my opinion it is very user friendly. You can check out my Tumblr page here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thefeskefiles

Liedke, L. (2021, September 16). 7 best free RSS feed readers. Blogging Wizard. https://bloggingwizard.com/free-rss-feed-readers/