Blogs and blog readers

I created a tumblr account and added several reading quotes. It was simple to use. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/nmorrisseyuniverse After looking at the following blog readers; Bloglovin’, Feedly, Bloglines, and Digg Reader; I feel that Bloglovin’ is the best for me. I found Bloglovin’ to be set up in a similar format as Pinterest. Since I am familiar with Pinterest this blog reader was the easiest for me to relate to and use. Whereas, Feedly had a welcome screen format and coloring that I didn’t care for. Therefore, I didn’t spend time signing up or further exploring Feedly. While Blogline was located within twitter, which I am a fairly new user of. Thus, causing me not to be comfortable with using this blog reader. I signed up and started to explore Digg Reader, but was unable to find an area where I could do a topic search. This resulted in me being unable to find what I needed in a timely manner. Though I selected Bloglovin’ which has a similar format to Pinterest, I feel I need to continue to explore this blog reader in order to best use it. Below I have included links to a few of the blog readers that I viewed and thought may be useful at a later date. https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/1001-childrens-books-6972583 https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/crazy-for-kids-books-5210773 https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/andis-kids-books-5142707 1. ) http://justinthelibrarian.com I liked how this librarian had a variety of library related topics included in his blog. My favorite was how the library’s video game arcade game changing policies changed in order to encourage the children (tweens/teens) to read at least 20 minutes per visit. In the beginning the librarians were feeling down because several children were coming into the library’s video game arcade, but not checking out or even looking at books. One of the librarians decided to introduce a book display related to video games to help encourage the children who came to play in the arcade to read as well. Though the book selection was changed at least every week and a half, very few books got checked out. 2.)http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com This blog not only can be helpful for librarians, but teachers too. I really loved how the blog began with pictures and short blogs about many things stressed out (or burnt out) teachers tend to do that you need to distance yourself from, such as: stay out of/change negative environment in the teacher’s lounge, collaborate, defend our kiddos, think before you comment, and more. The first blog post that came up on my computer screen referred to the negative environment in the teacher’s lounge. As a teacher, I know that the teacher’s lounge is not a very positive environment especially in school districts with excessive demands on their staff. Therefore, staying out of the teacher’s lounge will most likely be a smart choice and create one to hopefully be surrounded with a more positive environment. This blog continues by expressing the importance of collaborating with other within or outside of your school. Then there is another post that talks about how you do not know what the children are battling outside of school, so be sure to defend and not talk negatively about the students. Next, the post reminds the reader to thinking before you comment. After starting in a new district and grade level this school year, I feel that I have become more negative lately and this blog really helped me see this. Now I need to take that time to turn negativity into positivity and encouragement for myself, co-workers, and most of all students. 3.) http://www.librarygirl.net The first three posts on this blog related to reading to and with your students. These posts include how and why this is important. Students need to know that the teacher or librarian is interested not only in the books, but also in their (the student’s) love of books/stories. Reading aloud shows the students how reading should be done and strengthens their comprehension of books. While reading with your students can help you (the teacher) to better get to know your student(s). This may also help to instill the love of literature into student/students. 4.) http://schoollibrarydisplays.blogspot.com As a teacher and future librarian, I found this library blog to be extremely interesting. I enjoyed how this particular blogger has included several decoration ideas and more. I really loved the idea of word cloud quiz pictures with words (http://schoollibrarydisplays.blogspot.com/2015/09/word-cloud-quiz.html). I will be sure to follow and check out more of the posts on this blog in the near future. 5.) http://schoollibrarydisplays.blogspot.com/2015/09/word-cloud-quiz.html This blog contains several tabs related to book reviews, library ideas, and much more. The information on this blog was easy to locate and understand (book reviews are sorted by genre).