Google Reader

Google Reader although appearing similar in components as Delicious bookmarking, has a few outstanding qualities that would again be a useful time saver for teachers of the twenty-first century.
As a pre-service teacher it is important to maximise the available time I have for reading what matters the most to my studies and preparation of lesson plans. Google reader allows me to sort my reading list by relevance and also search for blogs and sites that I may have previously missed by utilising the ‘Discover’ option on Google Reader. This option finds blogs and sites that are based on my existing topics and therefore adds to my subscriptions for me.
Similar to Delicious, Google Reader allows for friends and colleagues to be invited to your site and share your subscriptions. This again is a form of opening the channels of communication and particularly as a new teacher to a school, this would be a clever way to make friends or introduce you to new colleagues.

I am finding this research to these applications very interesting as I am rather new to these forms of communication. I feel that as part of the responsibility of today’s teachers, technology is moving at a much faster rate than I will ever maintain. However, if we are able to decipher and implement a percentage of such technologies, we are helping to maintain student interests’ thus promoting a climate within the classroom that encourages communication and valuable learning. Teachers are striving to maintain student interest and keep students at school and these programs such as Google Reader, Delicious and Blogging this may just open the doors for these students who could otherwise be lost in the system.