Feedly

Teachers often wonder how I keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest trends in technology. Twitter plays a big role in helping me stay abreast of the latest trends, but Feedly is the secret ingredient that enables me sort through the everyday onslaught of technical information, breaking news, and modern teaching practices. What is Feedly you ask? Feedly.com is an online aggregator that compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources. Feedly frees me of having to physically go to all of my favorite websites to check for new content. Every time one of the blogs or websites I subscribe to is updated, that content will "magically" appear on my Feedly page in real time. This push/pull technology brings the information to me rather than me having to go out and find it on my own. Feedly also has an iPhone app that I use on a daily basis. 

How might Feedly apply to the classroom? Well, if you have a class of students who are maintaining their own personal blog sites, Feedly would be a great way monitor those sites. You could subscribe to each student's blog and every time a student updates their blog those updates would appear in Feedly. No more having to visit and view each student's blog site individually - those updates will come to you! Below is a screenshot of my Feedly account. As you can see I am able to organize my feeds into folders by topic:

Feedly Screenshot