Update: Google recently announced they they would be discontinuing Google Reader as of July 1, 2013. As a result, I no longer recommend it as a blog reader. Click here to read my newest post about alternatives to Google Reader.
I’ve been reading blogs on a regular basis for several years now. Initially, I would visit each blogger’s page periodically to see if they’d written anything new. This was time consuming, and not necessarily helpful because many of the bloggers I read would go weeks between posts. At some point along the way, someone suggested that I use Google Reader and that changed everything.
I use Google Reader to subscribe to any blog that interests me. Then, when the blogger posts something new, the new post shows up in my Reader right away, and then stays there until I can get to it. I don’t have to keep checking in every few days because I know that everything will be in my reader when I’m ready for it. I now follow over one hundred blogs on a plethora of topics. I have all of my blogs organized by category: Deocrating, Teaching, Cooking, etc. When I have a free minute, I can sit down and browse the most current posts in whatever topic I’m interested in at the moment. This is particularly useful with my teaching blogs. There is simply no way that I could keep up with all of the blogs that I follow if I didn’t have their posts all in one place.
If you’re lucky, the blog you want to subscribe to will have an RSS reader icon that looks like this.
If you can find that icon, you click on it and then it will ask you which reader you want to subscribe with. You simply click “Subscribe with Google Reader” and you’re done! Unfortunately not all the blogs I like to follow have an RSS button. So I’ve learned to put them directly into my reader. Here’s how you do it:
Google Reader is pretty straight forward, particularly if you already have a Google account. The first thing you need to do is sign into your Google account. When you’re signed in, you should have a toolbar across the top of your screen that looks like this:
If you click on “more” there will be a drop down menu, and one of the choices will be “Reader.”
Once you’re on the reader screen, you need to look for the “Subscribe” button. It’s orange and on the upper left.
When you click on subscribe, you’ll see a box like the one below.
Next open another tab on your browser and find a blog that you want to follow. For this example, we’ll follow Technology in Early Childhood. Copy the URL of that blog. For Technology in Early Childhood the URL is
technologyinearlychildhood.wordpress.com
The URL is the “address” for the blog that’s at the top of your browser. In Google Chrome (the browser I use) the URL is circled in the picture below.
Next, click back to the tab where you have Google Reader open, and paste the URL into that box under the subscribe button.
Click “add” and you have now subscribed to your first blog!
Once you’ve got a few blogs you’re reading, you may want to add some categories. Here’s how you do it.
*All of the blogs that you subscribe to will be listed on the left hand side of your page.
*Hover over the title of any blog that you want put in a category.
*Click on the inverted triangle that appears on the right hand side of the blog title
*Choose “New Folder” from the menu.
*Enter the title for your first category and the blog you highlighted will automatically be added to that folder.
*Repeat the process with any blogs you want to add to that folder, except choose the folder you made, instead of “new folder.”
A full Reader is a good friend to any bibliophile; you can always have something to read on hand. You just log into google, click on “reader” under the more button, and go to town.
Looking for some blogs to add to your reader? Here are a few of my favorites. Click on the name of the blog to visit it.
Teaching:
Boy Mama Teacher Mama Full of great teaching ideas, and mommy ideas
Teach Preschool Lots of hands on, engaging preschool lessons
Home:
The Pioneer Woman Amazing recipes, humor and tales of life on a ranch
Young House Love House Decorating ideas
Cooking:
Bakerella The inventor of cake pops! Lots of yummy treats
VegGirl RD She makes vegetarian eating look so yummy
Of course there are countless other ways to follow blogs. Most blogs have a place where you can enter your email address to receive an email when the blog is updated. That honestly isn’t my favorite method because my email box is pretty cluttered already, and I miss my favorite blog posts that way. But it does work for someone who isn’t going to read a ton of blogs. I suspect to that as a blogger, rather than a blog reader, I will soon discover other ways to keep up with my favorite blogs. I’ve tried to follow a couple of you that are following me through WordPress with only mixed success. Let me know if you’ve got any tips for me on that! Otherwise, happy reading!
Thanks for the tips!
Christine
Math Central
You’re welcome. Thanks for stopping by.