Professional Journal Entry 3: RSS Feed/Google Reader

I'm On Top of the World - Imagine Dragons 

Reason - It is the song I used to intro my first classes in the LRC to pump kids up for back to school and the infinite possibilities for them in my class.  Hoping my feedly helps me discover new tools and strategies to use with them.

 

 

 

 

 

1.       Link to Tool Explored  Feedly.com- http://feedly.com/index.html#my

2.       Liked About Tool – My head is spinning because there is so much I like about this tool. I love that it forced me to understand how to follow blogs.  I knew they were out there, but had no idea that there was a technology tool like feedly to help me follow and organize the blogs.  I like that it will help me stay current with conversations in the ed, tech ed and library worlds.   Ironically, setting up an RSS feed was one of my PLN goals for this school year.

Don’t Like About the Tool – It’s a little overwhelming. I started searching and adding blogs and my anxiety started to build because there are so many blogs out http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/there.  How will I find the time?  Then, I decided to stop adding for now and my next focus will be carving out time to read the blogs.

 

3.      Summary – I was a little worried going into this because I had never used a blog reader before, but feedly was pretty user-friendly.  I used the assignment links to start and then found a few sites on my own.  I created the following three folders to organize blogs:  LIS, Children’s Lit and Technology in Education.  The blog sites I added were:

Kids’ Lit

      A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy http://www.lizburns.org/ (new location)

     Good Comics for Kids http://blogs.slj.com/goodcomicsforkids/

     100 Scope Notes http://100scopenotes.com/

     Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast  http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/

LIS

      The Adventures of Library Girl http://www.librarygirl.net/

      The Daring Librarian http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/

Technology in Education

      Free Technology for Teachers http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

      Lisa Nielsen The Innovative Educator http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/

      Bit by Bit http://feedly.com/index.html#subscription%2Ffeed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fbobsprankle.com%2Fbitbybit_wordpress%2F%3Ffeed%3Drss2

I was able to figure out how to follow and organize. Once organized, I do need to figure out how I can move blogs and delete or rename categories.  I will absolutely need more time to explore it.  Right now, I feel like I have too many blogs that I am following and would like to carve out time to regularly check blogs.  Then, I’d like to prioritize the ones I feel are the most beneficial and unfollow those that are not as beneficial to me.  I was impressed that this tool existed.  I was able to set up some RSS feeds within feedly too and that was one of my PLN goals from the summer class.  I look forward to comparing blogs and RSS feeds. 

 

4.        Future Use

Since I work with elementary ed students, I don’t plan to  use this tool with my students or necessarily to promote the library, yet.  My students are young and not all of my students have access to digital technology with wi-fi on a regular basis.  My plan is to use this tool as a form of professional development for now.  Once I become more familiar with blogs, I would consider setting up a blog for the Learning Resource Centers in which I teach.