Facebook, Twitter, Instagram...Oh my!!

For as long as I can remember, Facebook has been the one social media avenue for adults, educators, librarians and business professionals. People could communicate, share ideas/thoughts and stay up to date with each other´s lives and latest trends.   In the librarian and education world, Facebook is a place where educators can go to share new teaching strategies, articles and news with colleagues and their school community.  Parents, guardians, and students can follow their librarian on Facebook to stay in tuned with upcoming events in the library, new books and tools that have arrived.  After viewing some of the most recent Facebook posts, I realized that many of the Librarian Media Specialist pages discussed the importance of technology and how librarians are transforming learning to ensure excellence for every student in this digital age.

Over the years, there have been a number other social media applications that have emerged and as a result, Facebook has taken a back burner.  Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Snapchat, and many more are very similar to Facebook and have become just as popular.  I searched through many library pages on Facebook and compared the amount of followers with Twitter to see just how Facebook´s popularity has declined through the years.  I am a former teacher in the Conroe ISD school district, but I now teach in Manhattan, KS for Manhattan USD-383 school district.  This district is significantly smaller that Conroe ISD and so I was not surprised to learn that only 288 followers are following on the local school´s library Facebook page.  I then compared this number to the number of followers for the same school just on Twitter and was surprised to learn that over 20K people are following the same school.  This in case shows that over the years Facebook has taken a back burner to the other forms of social media I have mentioned but not limited.


To explore a variety of school librarian pages, I decided to complete this task using Twitter.  I am not very familiar with Twitter as I am Facebook so I found this to be a great way for me to dive in and really explore how librarians and educators are using Twitter and provide me with great information for how Twitter and other social media apps are being used to enhance and increase the success of students through technology.

One of the biggest supporters of librarians and educators and biggest names in educational technology today was Alan November @globalearner.  I found him on Twitter and I was in awe of the types of educational questions he posed for his followers and had them reflect on why they chose to be a librarian or educator and how powerful our role is to our students.

                                                                                                                       @globalearner

Here Alan November posted a question on his Twitter asking followers and fellow educators how and when they fell in love with reading.  As a future librarian, I loved exploring through each comment and connecting with others with similar experiences and also enjoying reading how different each of our experiences were.  This really pricked my heart and opened my eyes to how our students learn to love reading at different times and in different situations!

The second big name in educational technology today on Twitter that I found myself scrolling through several tweets was Linda W. Braun @lbraun2000.  In the below Tweet, Linda sought out to learn and understand how schools and school districts are doing to prepare students for college institutions.

                                                                       @lbraun2000

It was interesting to read the thoughts and posts of Linda´s followers,  I enjoyed viewing their perspective and ideas as well the concerns of others.  This led to great conversations among colleagues and educators.  These types of Tweets, I can tell, are what helps to make Twitter such a well known social media avenue.

The last big name in educational technology today that I will bog about is Paul W. Hankins @PaulWHankins.  What I love about his tweets on his Twitter account is how positive he is about our ever changing digital world and how that without a doubt affects our students and school community.

                                                                                                                     @PaulWHankins
What I love about this tweet and like many other Tweet by Paul W. Hankins is how he offers ideas and techniques for educators and librarians by incorporating literature into different content areas of learning.  This one tweet that he posted had to do with embedding literature to use with students to increase interest in their writing unit.  I always strive to incorporate as much literature as I can through all content areas that I teach especially if I am introducing a new concept or unit.

Now these are just a few of the librarians that I am following and that sparked interest for me.  There are so many more with amazing teaching strategies, motivational and encouraging words that lead to phenomenal conversations as well as ideas about to immerse and engage all students with our ever changing digital age.  Below I have listed just a few tweets that caught my eye and I wanted to share with you.  Feel free to add me on Twitter and share any of your thoughts and ideas!  @AmberScott1982

  @PaulWHankins@MrSchuReads

@colbsharp

Now I have mentioned and discussed how beneficial Facebook and Twitter are for libraries and incorporating technology into education, but one social media that is very popular as well but leans heavily on pictures is Instagram.  Many are very familiar with Instagram just like they are with Facebook, and some even prefer to have images displayed to capture their interest.  I know that I am more of a visual learner and if I saw images explaining the amazing aspects of the library program or events coming in the near future, I am more likely to attend or be more interested compared to reading about in words in a post on Facebook.

With Instagram, one of the benefits is that librarians are allowed to advertise and publish images and postings of upcoming events that are happening in the school library to share with students, parents and the school community.  Librarians can even opt to showcase bookfairs, author visits, award winning books, new releases that have been added to the library collection and many more engaging activities and promotions that will actively engage students!  Now just like Twitter and Facebook there are advantages and disadvantages with Instagram.  The advantages I have already touched on: images, eye appealing, easy to use and access.  But the disadvantages can effect the outcome of the library events and programs, such as: a possibility of not receiving all of the information you need to have at your fingertips, instead there are just images.  Also there are filters and resizing that could directly effect the response to the events and programs advertised by the library.  Check out a few of my posts and story from my Instagram page.  Follow me at booksgaloretoexplore on Instagram!

BooksGaloretoExplore
My story: BooksGaloretoExplore Story

Determining the right social media site, will depend on the type of librarian you are, the culture and climate of your school community and the collaboration with colleagues.  My advice to all aspiring librarians who want to venture out and try a new avenue of social media is to explore and weigh your options and determine the best option when it comes to social media and the environment of your library in order to gain student success, reading independence and confidence with technology.

The scoop on Feed Reader!

This  day and age, many professionals in a variety of careers, rely on the web and apps to stay up to date with trends, news, and a number of other hot topics in the world today.  Apps like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter are just a few popular apps that attract people on a daily basis.  But what I have found is that as great as these apps are, they are not as resourceful and convenient to navigate throughout my busy day.

 I recently came across a remarkable new app that allows me to combine my love for reading, education, trends and politics into one tool that will allow me to enjoy all my favorite websites and blogs in one easy to use location.  Feed readers are designed to incorporate a variety of topics, websites and blogs ready at your fingertips to accommodate our busy lifestyle.  With feed reads, I am able to access all of favorite websites, apps and blogs combined into one location instead of having to have several different tabs and windows open whether it be on my laptop or on my mobile device. 

When I came across this app, I was amazed and so excited that I could not keep this discovery to myself!  I thought to myself, ¨Amber you are not the only busy individual who searches for ways to make your life easier!" See I work not only as a 3rd grade teacher, but every evening I leave my school job and head to my second job in an office at a dealership and on top of that I am caring for my sick father and a full time grad student.  Now, I am saying all of this to show you that I do not have time to search leisurely through tons of different ads, websites, apps.  I need something that will be easily accessible and a tool that I can turn for quick and easy results.  When I came across feed reader, I wanted to share my findings and thoughts of which feed readers I have found to be the best and which feed readers I personally recommend.

The first feed reader that I found to be very beneficial and easy to access was Feeder.  Feeder is a very similar tool to the apps that are used everyday by most people.  Within this feed reader, users will find that Feeder is very similar to the apps that they currently are using.  I found this to be a big reason for choosing this app.  Once user have successfully created an account, user will be able to place posts in the order in which they choose, even in reverse chronological order.  But the best feature of Feeder is that anyone can use the app wherever and whenever they want!  Even on the go, users will have the option to view posts on a shortened or full length article on their mobile device.  Another feed reader that I found helpful would have to be the Old Reader.  The Old Reader app allows users to conveniently share and recommend resources, literature and ideas with other users.  As a teacher, I found this to be very beneficial in the education world.  Other teachers, librarians and colleagues would be able to view your recommendations and together you would have the opportunity to grow professionally.    But whats even better, is that with Old Reader even if your colleagues are not subscribed to Old Reader, you are able to view and access tabs and articles that have received the most recommendations and that have been viewed the most and from there you are able to decide what tools, literature and ideas that you would like to add to your app.  The only thing that I struggled with is that with Old Reader there are no mobile apps like there are with Feeder.  The layout and design were not user friendly and seemed to be very distracting while trying to navigate the app.   The last feed reader that I would recommend is Feedly.   Feedly is one of the most common and most used feed readers available.  Educators and librarians find this feed reader to really be beneficial.  I found that with Feedly, the layout and design were very user friendly and easy to navigate.  Users are also able to tag stories and ideas that they come across.  But just like with Old Reader I did find drawbacks.  The biggest drawback that I found was that Feedly required a google account.  This was very disappointing because not all librarians and educators have a google account and they will hinder them from exploring the app.

Now I did mention three of the best feed readers, but there are so many more to choose from that have pros and cons.  As a future librarian, I had to take time to explore the recommended feed readers from an article that I was informed would help narrow down my search.  The article came from Vicki Volvovski entitled The 10 Best RSS Reader Apps of 2018.  This article was very helpful and provided information on the top ten apps that were recommended and provided users with information on each app.  I was able to explore the apps and then decide onder the one app that no only appealed to me, but was very fitting my professional and personal needs! 

To begin building and organizing my Feeder, is to explore other school librarian blogs and posts in order gather as much information and ideas I can professionally.  I want my Feeder to be very useful and easy accessible for me and my colleagues.  I have listed my top favorite five school librarian blogs below.

-https://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/  This blog was helpful because it kept up with the most up to date topics, graphics to attach to the blog and ideas and suggestions for future posts.

-http://www.nikkidrobertson.com/  With this blog, I enjoyed reading similar posts that I could relate to as well as this school librarians main goal to prepare her students for the digital era and how she supports her teachers with her digital expertise.

-http://www.librarian.net/  I found this blog very beneficial because I was able to gather ideas for my library and I enjoyed the large amount of topics and ideas discussed.

-https://justinthelibrarian.com/  This blog was very meaningful and discussed the importance of the impact a school library can have on the school community and public. 

-http://futura.edublogs.org/ This is the final blog that I found interesting.  Here the author discusses the importance of digital media and technology and how it can transform schools and libraries.

Last but certainly not least I recently became a Tumbler member.  Here is my link for you to follow and enjoy my posts! https://www.tumblr.com/blog/readingforthewin


I am looking forward to adding to this collection and blog! Stay tuned in for future posts!