Blogs and Blog Readers

First, I created a Tumblr account and much to my family's dismay spent hours and hours there.  I have never used Tumblr, nor ventured into Tumblr-land until this assignment. I have to say that my first experience was quite educational. I did a search for "school library" and one of the first images that popped up was a pornographic GIF. I have 4 children, 3 of which are younger than 15, so I slammed the lid shut and had to run the computer into another room. I quickly did a search on how to block content which is quite easy. You just click on the image of a person and choose "Block."   Here's an example of what I mean. I did this on several blogs that had curse words in their name. My children love to look over my shoulder while I'm working plus I'm an elementary school librarian so I want to make sure the content that comes up on my page is as appropriate as possible. I made a post of my own. The "Teacher Librarian post below is my favorite meme so I posted it just to see how it works. I also reblogged a few things about summer reading and libraries in general.

Some school libraries use Tumblr as a source to post photos and information about their libraries while others have more of a personal page where they post things they like and pictures of their cat. 

I was mostly searching for elementary school librarians because I teach elementary and wanted to see what they were doing but there were only a handful of pages that came up. It seemed like there were a lot more middle and high school library pages on Tumblr.  I'm guessing it's because the content can be questionable for the under 11 age group so not many elementary school librarians seem to have taken to Tumblr.  

I choose NewsBlur as my Blog reader. I love this thing. First of all, I love FREE and second I love that it learns what you like.  I started by adding our classmate's blogs and I love how it compiles everyone's blog in an easy to read format.  After I added a few, It started asking me if I'd like to "try" or "add" different blogs.  Here's a link to my NewsBlur.

I had a little trouble getting started but they had some nice tutorials that helped when I got stuck. I really like the Intelligence Tracker. You can choose what you like or dislike about a particular blog and it will show you more like that you like or less that you don't like.

All in all, I love this reader.  I liked how it grayed out the posts you had already accessed so you could tell right where you left off.  You can make folders to group blogs that relate to each other. One limitation is that you can only follow 64 sites in the free version. After that you have to pay but it seems pretty reasonable at only $24/year.

The first blog I chose to follow was Watch. Connect. Read. by Mr. Schu Reads.  I also follow him on Twitter but I find Twitter hard to "follow" sometimes because it cuts off longer stories or posts.  For me, most of his posts are relevant and he posts often.  There were several blogs that I looked at that the author hadn't posted in months or even years.  I love the book trailers that he has posted.  I think that this will help me when adding books to my libraries or I can even use as examples as to what my student can do when making their own book trailers. 

Another blog I chose to follow was the library voice by Shannon M. Miller.  Again, I like this blog because it is up to date and she posts often.  It's on current issues like technology, new book reviews and book trailers.  I also like that she is a Future Ready Librarian spokesperson.   I consider myself a Teacher Librarian and I like that's how she refers to herself in her bio, along with a lot other titles but she seems very tech savvy and forward thinking.  I love that!

The next blog that I chose was Librarians Matter by Kathryn Greenhill from Australia.  I decided to follow this one because I'd like to see what they are doing all over the world. She teaches librarians at a university over there.  She has a passion for technology.  She posts about different apps that could be used with students.  I learned a lot of new things just in the 5 or 6 posts that I read.  So excited to share some of those things with my students next year.  Some of the language in her posts can get a little explicit so not for the younger set.

I have followed The Adventures of Library Girl for a few years on Facebook and Twitter but my new Blog Reader has made it that much easier to read her blog.  YAY!  She is one of my favorites. She doesn't post as often as some of the other bloggers. She probably posts a blog once or twice a month but her posts are almost always meaningful and timely to me. She posts more often on her Facebook and Twitter pages. She also posts about apps to use in education, which is something that I LOVE!  Sometimes it's hard to weed through the masses of apps available out there so it's nice to have recommendations of tried and true apps, plus new things to share with my students.

And last but not least, Great Kid Books by Mary Ann Scheuer from Berkeley, CA.  She is an elementary librarian that I can really connect with. She also writes reviews for Kirkus. This site is pretty much a book review site but it is for books that are appropriate for my students. I like the way she reviews them, quick identification about what the book is about or how it can be used in your classroom.  She recommends ebooks, read-alouds, novels, etc.  It will be a great resource for me next year in turning my students on to new books.