RSS Reader Apps, like the Social Media of Online Content

I remember way back in 2009 when I finally got around to joining Facebook at the urging of my then college-aged family members. I found it surprisingly more user-friendly than that awful Myspace they’d made me join a couple years before; it had been so tedious to design and time consuming to keep up with. Suddenly with Facebook I had a never-ending string of newsfeed at my fingertips, and it updated constantly! Then I got Twitter, and it updated so much I was overwhelmed, but that’s another story.

Finding a usable RSS reader reminds me of how excited I was when I first started following my Facebook newsfeed, which offered more content every time I added to my list of friends. Like a digest for online content, a good RSS reader helps keep users in the know without overwhelming them with too much information and/or time consumption. After reading about and previewing a number of apps, I decided to download Feedly and get started adding content. I partly decided on this specific app because it seems that many users who have been much longer-educated on this subject than I loved Google Reader and bewailed its demise, and they point to Feedly as being the most similar. I personally love all things Google, so it seemed for me, especially since users noted “Feedly...offers almost all the features of Google Reader (and so much more)” (2017). It is frequently hailed as being user-friendly, without distracting ads or pop-up’s, is “clean and simple,” and offers the basic interface with everything a regular user really needs at no cost (Volvovski, 2019). Additionally, I set my view to “Popular + Latest,” so I not only see most recent posts, but those good ones I may have missed.

As a school librarian and elementary educator, I have an eye toward trends in not only literature, but also cutting edge ideas in science, arts, and technology, and creative approaches to reaching students. While you might choose to follow any number of blogs for entertainment or informative reasons, here are a few I decided on, in no particular order:

The TpT Blog - the “Team TpT” blog of arguably my most often visited website, Teachers Pay Teachers. I’ve already followed this blog separately in the past due to their highlighting of free resources to address specific educational interests. TpT is a wealth of creative options for reaching students, but sometimes I don’t even know what I’m searching for, and these posts can point me in the right direction. Additionally, free is my favorite kind of resource!

The Official Google Blog - I consider this a nonnegotiable blog to follow. Just one of many recent posts highlights “creativity apps” offered, “tools for the next generation of authors, filmmakers, journalists, artists and boardroom visionaries to capture and broadcast their ideas to teachers, parents, and students around the world.” This is another example of me finding some very useful tools I would not have known to go looking for.

School Library Journal - While I normally go to the website of SLJ looking for information, I now follow both their Tumblr and YouTube channel through Feedly. Self-described as an “accelerator for innovation in schools and public libraries,” SLJ aspires to produce “resources, services, and reviews that make library and education professionals savvier, parents smarter, and communities stronger.” In other words, here is an easy way to view resources that anyone involved in any aspect of education should find useful.

No Shelf Required - This focus on ebooks and digital content is a great way to stay abreast of trends both at my reading level, as well as what may be available to students. There has been an uptick in digital content within our district lately, and most recently we rolled out Sora, with hundreds of digital titles available to students to read through their Sora apps (the app for students by OverDrive).

Teaching in the Elementary Library - I started following this blog for random reflections and extremely practical tips like “learning names in the elementary library,” which made me laugh, though the struggle is real. With real lesson suggestions, the blog also addresses such controversial topics as self-checkout (gasp!) and no limit circulation policies. I like to be challenged by new and different ideas.

I’ve also decided to give Tumblr a shot and see how well I can keep up with it--I’m KTXlibrarian. So far I’ve only experimented with posting to make sure I know what I’m doing, but have begun following a number of others. The visual platform reminds me almost of an Instagram for bloggers (I also set my Feedly to “magazine” view, as “text only” is boring). I recommend following some interesting blogs like Currents in Biology, Minorities in Publishing, and Twentieth Century Kid for a variety of both entertainment and information.

Cited

11 Reasons Why I Love Feedly - And You Should Too. (2017, July 3). Retrieved January 25, 2020, from https://www.minterest.com/why-feedly/

Library and Media Specialist Blogs. (n.d.). Retrieved January 25, 2020, from http://www.ciclt.net/ul/garesa/Blogs.pdf

Volvovski, V. (2019, June 4). The 10 Best Free RSS Reader Apps in 2018. Retrieved January 25, 2020, from https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/