Below you will find information on different Blog Readers that I investigated and my final selected blog reader. You will also find information on how librarians are using Tumblr in their libraries. Lastly, you will read about five blogs that I thought were worth following. Enjoy!
Comparing Blog Readers:
I decided to use Bloglovin' after I read many review on it. It seems to be one of the most popular blog reader. Some of the things I kept reading about was how it was efficient to use. Users are able to claim their blog and see who their followers are in Bloglovin'. Other blog readers don't seem to have this, such as Feedly. Bloglovin' makes it simple to transfer from anther blog reader such as Google Reader. I read that in the previous years, Feedly announced a change to their website with such late notice that some of its users were not able to export their feeds. Some concerns about Digg Reader was that it lacked the share feature for Facebook or Twitter and other basic features.
I also chose Bloglovin' because it is the first blog reader that I use and it was user friendly when setting up. It also allowed me to view my feeds in a separated tab, which made it easy to close and continue to the unread blogs. I quickly learned to share the posts using Twitter or Facebook and I appreciated the comment feature it contained. As a new user, I believe it has all the necessary basic features I need to effectively follow all the bloggers I want and it has the ability to share information easily. Overall, I think I will stick to Bloglovin' and continue exploring all its great features.
How are librarians using Tumblr?
While viewing various Tumblr blogs, I found that many librarians are using this site to basically communicate with their patrons by using a medium that might be more familiar to young people. With all the technology resources today, it's obvious we can no longer depend for students to come check out what's happening in the library in person, so we have to go to them. These blogs are being used to post book reviews, links to articles, inspirational quotes. I found that in many of these blogs, inspirational or reading quotes were very popular posts for many libraries. Photos of library shelves, student activity and student work were also posted. I think that librarians that are using resources like Tumblr and blogs are great librarians that are striving to keep students engaged in what the library has to offer. These are the librarians that I hope to be like one day.
Five Highlight Blogs:
1.) Montclair
Elementary School Library:
This
library uses Tumblr to show what is happening in the library. I followed this
post because I saw real photos of children working on activities. I think this
is one thing that always causes readers to follow bloggers; real people doing
real things. This is how I personally get ideas of what my blog should look
like and what things I could post. In this blog, children and teachers are
reading, checking out books, working on projects and using the computers for
research. It is a look into an ideal library. Let’s not forget, this is an
elementary library. Wow!
2.) Westfield
Middle School Library
This middle
school library is using Tumblr to post pictures of some of their library
decorations and a few pictures of the book shelves. I was attracted to this
post because it had a picture of a bicycle hung on the library wall so close up
to the ceiling and underneath the bike, it had Albert Einstein’s famous quote,
which is also one of my favorites. It goes, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To
keep your balance, you must keep moving.” I thought this is something I would
probably do in my own library; create an awesome visual like this that will
send the message across to my patrons that I believe in their success.
3.) School
Libraries Rock
This
particular Tumblr blog is not by a school library, but it is “a blog about the
wonderful world of school libraries,” as stated as the heading on their blog. I
decided to follow this blog because it contains great links to media
specialists guides. One specific post was a list of sites viewers could use on
how to podcast. Another link has a list of classroom blogs for teaching ideas
and inspiration. This list has up to one hundred resources! One of the
resources provides a list of short story books that are categorized as classics.
The list also has a brief synopsis as well as a list of the themes that are
expressed in the story.
4.) The
Unquiet Librarian
This was
not a school library blog, but I chose it because I recognized the creator’s
name, which is Buffy J. Hamilton. This was one of the important library
professionals we were asked to follow on Twitter for a previous assignment.
Anyhow, I decided to follow this blog because Hamilton has over twenty years of
experience and I believe she knows what she’s talking about. One of her recent
posts contains pictures of one of her workshops where educators are using the
“write around text on text strategy” and she provides pictures of their work.
This serves as a great example for teachers who would like to use this strategy
in their classrooms.
5.) The
Blue Skunk Blog
This blog
belongs to the Director of Libraries and Technology for the Mankato Public
Schools, Doug Johnson. First of all what attracted me to this blog was the blog
name. I found this blog by searching for school library blogs and I came across
a list of recommended blogs of which The Blue Skunk was one of them. I enjoyed
Johnson’s post titled If you could give your child a superpower, would you?
Here Johnson writes how technology itself has given children somewhat of a
supernatural power where they are able to communicate with the world without
restriction. It encourages parents to take on the responsibility of teaching
their children about ethical use of the Internet. What I appreciated most was
how Johnson put the message across with an interesting title.
No comments:
Post a Comment