Blog Reader, Tumblr, and Blogs

Blog Reader

A Blog Reader helps you stay organize by saving your favorite or most frequently visited websites. These can be sites you may be interested in keeping up with on a daily basis. By saving them into a Blog Reader you don’t have to struggle finding a particular site on another day that you decide to visit that specific site. You just sign in to your Blog Reader, find the site, click, and you are surfing that precise website again.

I investigated several Blog Readers. I learned about Bloglovin’, Feedly, Bloglines, NewsBlur, Digg Reader, and Newsvibe before I decided which one would best meet my needs as a new Blog Reader. For the most part they all serve the same purpose. They all seemed simple to use, but some had better features than the others.

Bloglovin’ seemed simple, but I got discouraged when I read its reviews. The reviews discussed that some of its users were struggling with messages not been marked as read when they switched from one device to another, for instance when customers switched from their phones to their laptops all of their messages were marked as unread when they had already read them on their first device.

I then read about Bloglines and right away I knew it was not for me. I tried accessing it and their site was down. I moved quickly to read about NewsBlur. At first glance, I liked it, but the page seemed too busy and confused me right away.

Then, I read about Digg Reader and I learned that it was barely been introduced and that accessibility on iOS (iPhone & iPad) may not be available.  It has no searching options and lacks notifications. Newsvibe is similar to Digg Reader and definitely has no sharing options, no mobile apps accessibility and no browser extensions. I also read that it is currently experiencing a high volume of pop-ups (ads).

At last I found a winner, I chose to use Feedly as my Blog Reader. Feedly is extremely user friendly. I did not encounter any problems and I successfully saved my websites and blogs. I like that it gives you categories you can choose to explore; click on any of these categories and featured blogs will appear that you can instantly subscribe to. Feedly also shows you a personalized home screen with all your feeds. If you scroll down, more blogs that you have subscribed to will appear. These are all your feeds, shown by most current on top. You can organize your feeds by topic, helping you read according to what you need quickly. It is well organized, it provides social networking options, as well as iOS options. Since this Blog Reader provided better customer ratings and I didn’t encounter any issues while exploring it, I decided to continue using it.

Tumblr

I became a member of Tumblr. Tumblr is a blogging platform and social networking website that allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. It is extremely easy to navigate and use. 

All you have to do is sign in, click new post, and decide what kind of a post you want to display: photograph, quote, link, chat, audio, or video and in seconds your post goes public. If you like a post click the heart icon and the person you follow will know you like their post. If you like someone else’s post and would like to have that post in your blog, simply click on the square icon found next to the heart icon and that particular post will be shared and displayed on your blog. Tumblr provides easy options to change your screen background, upload your picture, add a title, and change font.

I searched Tumblr for different school libraries. I learned that Librarians and Teacher-Librarians use Tumblr to promote their libraries in several ways and similar to Facebook pages. Libraries post reminders of library overdue books, dates of upcoming school events such as art shows and poetry events. I also saw that some libraries use their Tumblr Blog to post humorous library quotes, reading quotes, and to post new vocabulary words along with their meanings and proper spellings. Since its summer, I saw that these libraries are posting reminders of their library’s summer hours and their Public Library’s times of service. I saw posts for possible Summer Reads, new YA books, and poetry books students may not be familiar with.  I also saw videos related to their school and their library.

I created a Tumblr Blog on Reading Quotes.

My Tumblr blog URL:

http://elegantreadinglady.tumblr.com/

5 Interesting Blogs/ Blog posts

The Daring Librarian Blog

http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/2015/06/makerspace-starter-kit.html

I follow the Daring Librarian on Tweeter already and she’s always sharing all sorts of ideas within the library world. I like this particular blog post since I’m interested on learning about makerspaces for my future library and this blog will help me get started. It even suggests where to purchase a starter kit.

101 Books

http://101books.net/2013/11/18/10-ways-to-lose-100-blog-followers-in-1-sentence-11-15/

I’m new to blogging and I intend to continue to create blog sites for my future library, therefore, I need to learn how to keep followers. This blog provides opening sentences frequently used in Blogs that might turn readers away quickly from the blog. If I avoid using these sentences in my Blog, I may be successful at keeping my future followers.

YA Reads

http://www.yareads.com/the-graveyard-book-graphic-novel-volume-1-the-graveyard-book-graphic-novel-1-by-p-craig-russell-adapter-neil-gaiman/book-reviews/13726

I love reading YA Literature. This book is one of my favorite books and so is the author Neil Gaiman. I didn’t know that this book is also a graphic-novel. I know the story, but I’m intrigued to buy this copy and see all of its graphics. This site provides book reviews. I teach middle school reading, therefore, this Blog is perfect for my middle school students.

Great Kid Books

http://greatkidbooks.blogspot.com/

I didn’t cite a particular blog post, as I like several things in the Blog itself. This Blog site is perfect for sharing with parents that have kids ages 2-14. I like that the links to find books are displayed by different categories such as: best books of the year, awards, best new book, Caldecott and Newbery Award. The blog facilitates you to search for books by age (K), (2-4), (5-8), (8-12), (12-14), and (YA). It also provides book reviews by genre.

Library Displays

http://schoollibrarydisplays.blogspot.com/2015/04/national-poetry-month.html

This Blog site shares ideas on library displays to promote books from the library collection. I can borrow some of these ideas for my future library spaces. I can also use some of these designs to decorate my classroom bulletin boards. I personally like this blog post. It is about a display for National Poetry Month. A good way to motivate students to read poetry.