This week, I got connected and signed up with Feedly. I was shocked to see all the resources and relevant articles all on one pages. Usually I search Google / Pinterest ideas, which is fine, however it is easy to get off track and distracted when searching. This website can be used specifically for educational purposes.
Selecting Feeds to Follow:
When selecting feeds to follow, I monitored the amount of followers, whether the feed was still active or not, and how many articles a week/month they post. Of course, my interests and relevance to teaching were accounted for as well! I found that I preferred the feeds who posted about once a week or once-twice a month. I do not want an overwhelming amount of feeds to look through and I want the feeds to be well thought through, not just quickly thrown together and not overly reliable. There were a few pages I was very interested in following, however, I felt was useless, since they were inactive. I want new, innovational, time-relevant, growing ideas on my feed. Yes, I am picky, however, I have learned from the past. When I was young, I would follow anything and everything on social media. As I grew older, I found it to be rather annoying, so I eventually had to do a major clean-out on both my Instagram and Facebook accounts.
My Favourite Feeds (for now)
Classroom Freebies was one feed that really caught my eye. This feed provides free lesson material printouts, activities and ideas for your classroom. I found that the ideas were less basic and were new ideas that I have not yet seen anywhere else before. The articles also acknowledge and understand teachers and how overwhelming it can be (I believe one of the authors, Charity Preston, is a teacher herself). In the article, Unlimited Time to Teach, She relates to her teacher-readers who are overwhelmed with the curriculum and how much we have to go through with students in one single year. She presents a new way of looking pre-assessment through using a free resource (Assessment Flowchart Guide). I look forward to see what other ideas Charity brings to educators!
TED-Ed was another feed that I was pleasantly surprised to see. Casually, I enjoy watching Ted-Talks on social media, and I almost always enjoy them, so I figured that this feed would be a great one for me. The feed actually links to their YouTube Channel. Looking through the articles in the feed, I see that they consist mostly of random (they are literally, very random) educational videos to show your class. One video that caught my eye was "What makes neon signs glow?". Watching this video gave me ideas of science experiments connecting to the Grade 4 Science Curriculum, doing a unit on light.
I am excited to continue using Feedly for various, new ideas on teaching.