Update on SLP Blogs Bundle: Now Follow Blogs Using Feedly!

For a few years, I have been a strong advocate of following blogs using an aggregator tool such as Google Reader. I even created a "bundle" of SLP blogs that anyone could subscribe to all at once using Reader. Unfortunately, several months ago, Google announced that it was retiring this product, causing much of the edtech world to spin into a panic (NOTE: If you subscribe to this or other blogs via email, none of this affects you, though I recommend reading on to learn about another way to receive blog content). Though Reader will not be accessible after July 1, 2013, and the SLP Blogs Bundle can therefore have no new subscribers after that time, a substitute has risen to the top: Feedly.

Feedly has been my go-to reading tool since the announcement of the demise of Reader, and I wanted to post about it in conjunction with SLP and fellow SpeechTechie Janelle Albrecht, who had a similar reaction to this bad news. Janelle supported me in those early, dark days after Google broke my heart. This post will give you some information and steps to follow whether or not you currently are a Reader/Feedly user.

Janelle and I conversed over a Google Hangout recently about the advantages of blog aggregators and how Feedly has become our savior:



Sorry that the video is a bit quiet on Janelle's end- you may need headphones to hear her side of the conversation. Key points:
-After July 1, 2013, Google Reader will be no more.
-If you log in to Feedly before July 1 with your Google Account, all your subscriptions and starred items will be migrated to Feedly seamlessly.
-Feedly is a free, clean and efficient tool that you can use to skim all blogs you subscribe to, share posts with others, and curate posts for later reading by "saving for later" or tagging posts in categories for your organization.
-Feedly became our top new tool (after a brief mourning period aligning with the stages of grief outlined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross) because of its wide array of features, similarity to Reader, clean look and feel, and cross-platform nature (you can use Feedly for free via any web browser, iOS and Android)
-Feedly has developed a critical mass of converts following the Google Reader announcement and has made key steps to ensure users' easy transition to the tool, which bodes longevity.
-Blogs are a GREAT "receptive" way to engage in social media and professional development. No need to interact if you don't want to; just read!
-You can start using Feedly even if you have never used Google Reader, and you should! If you follow more than two or three blogs, it is better to use such a tool than to individually navigate to blogs via bookmarks in your browser, which is inefficient and does not support easy sharing or curation of posts.
-Folks also like Flipboard and Zite, news aggregators that provide different experiences and features.
-You can still give yourself a jumpstart with a collection of blogs by subscribing to the Google Reader SLP Blogs Bundle before July 1 (navigate to Reader while signed into a Google account, then click on this link to add the bundle). Sign into Feedly as well before that date to migrate these subscriptions.
-After July 1, the SLP Blogs bundle will be unavailable for new subscribers, but will stay in your Feedly.
-I will make it a summer project to replace this bundle with a list or resource links of blogs you can add to your Feedly related to speech-language pathology. Heidi Kay of Pediastaff and Jenna Rayburn of Speech Room News have done this here and here very well so I am not sure how much I will reinvent the skillfully constructed wheel. It's very easy to add individual blogs to Feedly, as you can see in the tutorial below.

Overall, Feedly is super easy to use! In addition to the video above, which is more of a discussion, I made a tutorial on using the web or iPad versions of Feedly:



This post may trigger a number of questions. Please feel free to leave any questions in the comments and I will be sure to respond!  Thanks to the nearly 1,000 people who subscribed to the SLP Blogs Bundle over the past several years. I was very happy to promote all the good work of SLP Bloggers. Hopefully Feedly will come up with a similar bundling feature as it evolves.  Thanks also again to Janelle Albrecht for your time, insights, and patience with my "technical difficulties" on the morning of our recording!

Last Tips: Be sure to add something to your Feedly that makes you laugh or think (or both). Lately, I am enjoying the guilty pleasure of BuzzFeed, and Lifehacker always gives me good ideas. Both of these blogs, and some others, can be very prolific. DO NOT feel like you need to read every post of anything. That is sure to short out your brain and make you want to stop following blogs. Liberate thyself whenever the number of unread posts stresses you our- you can remove the subscription or "Mark all as Read." No one will know. Be Zen. Whatever you read is just the right amount for you to read.

Blog Awareness Month: The New Google Reader and SLP Blogs Bundle, Revisited

I have long been a proponent of using Google Reader to view blogs.  In fact, I will go further than just suggesting it and say that if you are looking at a lot of blogs and not using Google Reader (or an alternative), you probably shouldn't bother since you will be wasting so much time.  If you have a list of blogs you like to visit, it really does not make much sense to bookmark them and visit them individually.  You have no way of knowing whether the blog has posted anything recently, or alternately you will end up missing new posts.  Using the free and easy Google Reader service solves this problem by letting you view all your blogs in one place, and indicating which blogs have new posts. You have access to Google Reader if you have any kind of Google account, such as Gmail or Docs.  To add a blog to Reader, just click Subscribe and paste the URL of the blog, or type the name of the blog to search for its "feed."

Some time ago, I began building a "Bundle" of blogs written by SLPs in order to encourage others in our field to read these folks' contributions to the blogosphere.  There are many great SLPs currently blogging in order to discuss professional issues, resource reviews such as apps, books or websites, session plans, or just their take on life as an SLP.  The SLP Blogs Bundle allows you to subscribe to all these blogs (currently over 40) at once, and you may have already.  However, the Bundle does not refresh in your Reader when I have added new blogs to it. You have to go back and resubscribe, and you are of course welcome to unsubscribe from anyone in the Bundle whose writings you don't find as valuable as others.  They won't know you did it, I swear!

In the last months, a number of new resources have been added to the bundle, so don't miss 'em! Just a few highlights:
Jill Kuzma's Social and Emotional Skills Sharing Site- great ideas and visuals, many pages of resources and links to Pinterest Boards.
The Speech Dudes- really intelligent and funny analyses of topics related to Speech Language Pathology.
The Learning Curve- creative ideas and organizational tips for SLPs.
so to Speak- a very well-written and fun chronicle of SLP grad school.
Activity Tailor- more creative activity ideas for SLPs.
ProjectSLP- reflections on SLP practice.
Megan Panatier Bratti's great resources via her Avocado Tech Facebook Feed.

Again, just a few! There are many more great ones in the bundle...

Below is a video I made that goes through the recent changes to Google Reader, how to use it, and how to access the SLP Blogs Bundle.  Hope you enjoy!

Portable PD, Part Two

Last week I posted about Flipboard, an iPad app that lets you take your favorite "feeds" (Twitter, Facebook, etc) on the go with you.  I mentioned that it is not my preferred way to view my Google Reader blogs, because I like to look at them individually and not all mashed up!  My favorite way to view Reader is actually at reader.google.com, but if I am on the train or reclining somewhere, I do like Reeder for both iPhone and iPad.  Reeder lets you review everything that has been posted recently in a particular blog and syncs the items you read back to Google Reader, so that when you return to the web interface you will know what you looked at!  Additionally, you can star items that you know you want to bookmark or think about in more depth later (something you can also do with Flipboard).  Reeder sets you back a few bucks ($2.99/$4.99 for iPhone and iPad, respectively, and it's worth getting both if you have both) but is definitely a good item to have on your iDevice.

I love the way Reeder's interface lets you tap, scroll, and pull to move to the next post

Portable PD, Part One

One of the most acclaimed iPad apps of the year is also one that can let you take your Personal Learning Network with you anywhere you go.  I'm speaking of FlipBoard, which lets you add a variety of "feeds" (for example, Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, or any blog) and access it as an interactive magazine.  Yes, you literally can lie back and turn the pages and tap any entry to see more (i.e. when someone links to a video or article).

Image from techgenie.org

You can also interact with your feeds; you can add Twitter (or any Twitter list) to Flipboard, for example, and reply to others tweets, add to your favorite tweets, or retweet, right from the app.  It's a really fun way to access your PLN!

My Twitter feed, viewed in Flipboard

Adding "Sections" to Flipboard

A word about Google Reader in Flipboard: I have made it clear that I am a Reader addict, but I actually don't prefer viewing my blogs in Flipboard.  For one, it mixes them all the blogs up in order of who posted when (meaning it's one, unified chronological feed), and I like to make sure that I leave no item actually unread, or skimmed, and synched back to my Reader web page.  It's just how I am.  But more on that in Portable PD, Part Two, coming next week.

Oh, and did I mention that Flipboard is completely FREE?

Screencast Saturday: The SLP Blogs Bundle!

Google Reader allows you to create and share "bundles" of feeds with others, so that they can easily follow blogs of interest. I made a bundle of SLP blogs, and show you how to access it here:



You will need to sign into Google Reader before going to this link to subcribe to the SLP Blogs bundle. Good thing you can edit your bundles, because I realized after shooting the screencast that I accidentally left out the PediaStaff blog- a great blog that is there in the bundle now! Please let me know if you think anything else was inadvertently left out of the bundle- or if you'd rather yours not be there.

To make your own bundle in Reader, click on Browse for Stuff (I know, not intuitive) in your Reader sidebar.

Please let me know if you are an SLP with a blog and you'd like to be included.

Just added email option...

If you would like to subscribe to SpeechTechie via email, click on the new link under the SpeechTechie banner above. This allows you to subscribe using FeedBurner- you will only receive emails when I post here. I personally prefer reading blogs in Google Reader (scroll down to the "Subscribe to SpeechTechie" widget in the right sidebar or read the page above, also under the banner) but I know people like to do things in all sorts of ways. Enjoy and thanks for your continued reading!

Subscribing to SpeechTechie (and other blogs)

This is a screencast I made on how to subscribe to SpeechTechie and other blogs you might find interesting.  "Subscribing" means viewing blogs in an RSS Aggregator such as Google Reader, so that you don't have to remember to go to your favorite blogs individually to check for updates.




Here's a good list. And another.