I have been dipping my feet into the blogging waters the last couple of weeks, looking for meaningful blogs to follow that relate to my areas of interest in education, and also considering how and why blogs fit into my PLN.

Since researching my commentary topic, online learning communities and PD, I have come to clarify even further just how important twitter, blogs, and wikis are in my quest for a PLN. All will continue to support my professional growth long after my days in the MET program are over.

Will Richardson is a huge advocate of blogs and wikis to enhance connection and collaboration.  His book on Wikis, blogs, and podcasts is a very interesting read; I highly recommend it.

Another interesting read is an article by Bill Ferriter,  in Educational Leadership called “Learning with blogs and wikis”.  In the article Ferriter delves into the issues that teachers face in a changing technological classroom climate and the power that blogs and wikis can have in supporting teachers in their own learning.

There is no denying that educators around the globe see a value in writing and following blogs. According to information on the  Edublogs website, there are more than 1 million teachers blogging on their site alone. If you check out this extensive A-Z list of blogs relating to education you will see for yourself the ever-growing spectrum of blogs that are out there.

No one says you have to start a blog, in fact most, including Richardson and Ferriter suggest following blogs for a time using an RSS feeder.  Ferriter suggests pageflakes or Google Reader but his article was written in 2009 and things have changed. As I mentioned in a previous post Google Reader no longer exists – as of July 1st, 2013.

So, instead you will have to find an alternative. Here are a handful of great videos looking at some of the viable readers I have found: Feedly, Feedspot, Newsblur, The Old Reader, Newsvibe.

Feedly seems to be the front-runner by people looking to replace their GR accounts.  But if you have never used a RSS feeder before you won’t be as tied to choosing one that looks and feels like GR did.

In the end, I  opted to go with Feedspot. And then after a week I switched to Feedly.  Why? Feedspot has only been around for a year and it seems like there are lots of bugs to be sorted out. It got frustrating when it wouldn’t accurately count what feeds had been read and which had not.  What I was looking for was a simple, easy, text-based reading experience. That’s why I opted for Feedspot in the first place (that and it appeared to be completely free – which turned out not to be true).

The thing I didn’t like about Feedly was that everyone else was doing it. I didn’t want to be part of the herd. It also presents itself as a more “magazine”style viewing experience. But  with one simple click you can view feeds in a more traditional text-based format.  I’d like to say I want something flashy, but truth is I just find it distracting.  I am after all an English major and as much as I would  like to say I’m drawn first to the visual, in reality, I still choose words over images. So, for me,  a reader that lets me quickly read what people are talking about is best.

There are lots of great videos out there that offer “guided tours” of the various RSS feeders so I encourage you to look around and make an informed choice based on your personal preferences. Some are very magazine like (Flipboard , Pulse, and News360), others offer a more text-based, simpler reading experience (Newsblur, Newsvibe, the Old Reader). The choice is yours.