Digital Technology - RSS Reader Apps

My search into Digital Technology for Educators has led me to Blog Readers. After reading the article, The 10 Best Free RSS Reader Apps in 2018 (Volvovski, 2018), I learned that there are many informative Blogs that share reviews, resources and tools, tips on using technology in the classroom and so much more. The author shared what Blog Readers are and presented a list of the top 10 based on several different factors. She took into consideration cost, if the app was Web accessible, how the information is displayed, is the user has access to full length articles and ease of use.  She also explained how trying to keep up with all of the different blogs can be difficult but using a Blog Reader, also known as an RSS reader app, can help in managing and organizing all the information into one source.

I looked at some of the top RSS Reader apps including NewsBlur, The Old Reader, Netvibes, Freereader Bloglovin,’ and Feedly. Each one has its positives and negatives. NewBlur is easy to use and provides the user the ability to filter out things that do not interest them. Unfortunately, you can only follow up to 64 sources. The Old Reader is good for sharing blog posts with others you know that are also using the app as well as on social media. I didn’t like the display screen as much as I did some of the other apps. Another Blog Reader is NetVibes. According to the article, the author explains that Netvibes is more for marketing purposes. It allows you to create Potions which use key words, such as hashtags to track a specific product or follow what is trending.

Freereader and Bloglovin’ are two other free RSS Reader apps, but they do not suit my needs as an educator. Bloglovin’ focuses more on health, beauty, home décor and fashion. Freereader is very basic. You can follow feeds and mark them to read at another time but that’s about it. It does not offer options to share information on social media like many of the others, create different boards, or collaborate with others on the app.

The first Blog Reader I looked at was Feedly and in the end, it is the best fit for me. It is easily navigable, and support is available if needed. The basic plan is free and allows me to follow up to a hundred sources. The search feature and filters are user friendly and the display screen is appealing, simple to understand, and use. I was able to categorize the blogs I chose to follow and had the ability to create different boards based on my topics of interest. The free version of Feedly also allows access on Android and iOS devices, making it mobile.

Feedly offers the option to upgrade to a Team Plan for less than twenty dollars a month. This would allow me to share blogs, videos, and other information from the articles and posts I am following with others.  I would also be able to tweet information and links that would be beneficial to students, parents, faculty and staff.

Using Feedly, I am following several different blogs and sources of information relevant to education and technology. One of the blogs is The Children’s Book Review, https://www.thechildrensbookreview.com/. The posts I looked at included book reviews, tips and articles to help parents and children with summer reading and fun educational activities. It also included author interviews and shared other activities for educators that tied into newly released books. I find the information to be very helpful for librarians in knowing what books to possibly add to a libraries collection, as well as giving teachers great ideas for different engaging activities for students in the classroom.

Educational Technology, https://www.educatorstechnology.com/, is another source of information that offers posts about educational web tools for educators to use with students in the classroom. It shares information about different Web apps such as Story Jumper and other educational Apple resources available. Some of the posts include apps for specific subjects such as World History, Writing, and Science. There are also tips on apps that help teach letter writing and editing, as well as checking for plagiarism. Free Technology for Teachers, https://www.freetech4teachers.com/, is another excellent source that educators can learn from. There are tips on trouble shooting different technology issues including checking to see if a site is working or not, ways to see if a site is reliable, and links to modifying book trailer projects. Some other articles or posts it shared pertained to apps to help teachers working with students with special needs, new features that have been added to different educational tools such as Quizizz, and information about how to add fonts to different documents. I found both Educational Technology and Free Technology for Teachers to be useful sources of information for all educators including teachers and librarians.

Comics/Graphic Novels – BOOK RIOT, https://bookriot.com/, can be useful for librarians. It offers daily blog posts that include book lists and reviews, as well as interesting articles such as 9 Things Learned About Parenting from Comic Books by Margaret Kingsbury. Another post was 19 Really Funny Comics and Graphic Novels by Sarah Ullery. As a librarian, the book lists and reviews can help in finding books to add to the library’s collection. Some of the other articles I found to simply be entertaining.

My favorite source I am following is Education News, https://www.teachhub.com/teacher-blogs. I found many different posts for educators and all of them seemed to be helpful.  There was so much information. I felt that it was a “one-stop shop” for everything from technology, teacher wellness, new social media trends, classroom management tips, team building activities for teachers, back-to-school ice breaker activities, and information on new ideas for professional development. Tips for teachers included creating a healthy classroom environment and coping with back-to-school anxiety. It shared ideas on using Proximity Control to help with managing classroom behavior as well as information for Virtual Reality apps geared toward student learning. It also addressed collaborative professional development opportunities through EdCamps, highlighted the process, and described materials available for teachers to conduct and engage in trainings of their choosing. Education News is by far my favorite source of information. Everything I came across was something of interest and I wanted to read. I strongly recommend following this blog.

I also started looking into a different program to organize and share information, Tumblr. It enables the user to share blog posts, photos, videos, and music, as well as quotes and links. It reminds me of Pinterest and Facebook combined into one. I set up a free Tumblr account and was able to choose things of interest to me.  It pulled up blog posts relevant to my interests in order. I looked up school libraries to see how they use Tumblr. It seems to be a really neat tool to share what is happening in the library and what books are popular or new releases. I can see myself using Tumblr eventually, but I would want to spend more time learning about what all you can do with it and how it all works before creating one for a school library. I going to start using it based on personal interests and different topics relevant to education and libraries until I become more familiar with it and then look into creating an account for the school library. I know it can be a beneficial tool for a school, the faculty, students and staff, but until I am comfortable with it, I am going to use the Blog Reader, Freely, to manage and organize blog posts of interest. Feel free to follow me on Tumblr as I learn more about how it all works. The link to my Tumblr page is listed under Resources. You must have a Tumblr login or create one to access the page.

I know there is a lot more to learn about each of the different RSS Reader Apps. There are many more that I am not aware of. I have found one that works well for me and makes it easier for me to keep up with different blogs that I want to follow and I can find them all in one location. I hope that my journey through learning about Blog Readers has been helpful and that you will continue to follow my blog to see what Digital Technology for Educators I learn about in the near future.

Resources:

Link to Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lanasnowsworld

Volvovski, V. (2018, September 21). The 10 Best Free RSS Reader Apps in 2018: Follow your favorite blogs, sites, and feeds for free [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/.