Show Us Some Bloglovin - GIVEAWAY Linky!

Hey y'all!

So, by now, you have probably heard by now that Google Reader is going away on July 1st. Well, Google Reader may be going away, but I don't want YOU to go away, so I hope that you will consider following our blog through bloglovin! I know that change is hard...so quite a few bloggy buddies of mine (BIG thanks to Amanda & Stacia from Collaboration Cuties for setting this all up) thought we might sweeten it up for you a little bit!

We are EACH doing our own giveaways for all of our fabulous followers that take the leap and switch over to bloglovin. You may have already switched over!  In that case, this will be an easy entry!

If you have not yet switched or are not following our blog through bloglovin, then there are a few easy steps to follow. You can go to my sidebar on the right and you can click the button that says Follow this Blog with bloglovin under my other social media icons. Or, you can go into the Rafflecopter below and click the link in the first entry, and that will take you to my blog on bloglovin.

You will need to set up an account with bloglovin so that you can follow us. Please be sure to leave your bloglovin username in the Rafflecopter entry. Then, go to this post on bloglovin and "like" it. This will allow me to track & verify entries!

If you want to go ahead and move all of the blogs you follow from Google over, you can go to this link and it will take you through the super easy steps. BUT, please go to my specific bloglovin link and make sure that you are following me through bloglovin. To ensure you are following, make certain that the blue button at the top of me bloglovin page has been clicked (it should be gray with the word following- if it's blue, please click it to follow!)

So, if you follow me by bloglovin, please enter the giveaway!! I will be picking FIVE WINNERS and each winner will get their choice of TWO PRODUCTS from my TPT store!

Make sure to LIKE the post on Bloglovin' after you've gone over there to follow me. It's the first post that pops up right under the "FOLLOW" button!! This is the ONLY way I can verify entries... without it, your entries won't count.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
get the InLinkz code

Winner of Day 6 & Technology Thursday - {Bloglovin'}

What y'all have been waiting for... an announcement of the final winner!

Congrats, LaKeita!! Boy... am I JEALOUS of all those goodies she's getting!!

Thank you to EVERYONE who helped make my one year blogiversary SUCH a great experience. I met so many new people in such a short time and I hope that y'all will stick around to next year's blogiversary - Year 2! :)

So.. I know, it's all the rage and I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

Google Reader will be going kaput... disappearing... vanishing... SHUT DOWN.. on July 1st. Yep, this July 1st.

So, if you read your blogs through Google Reader (some people did, some people didn't... just depends on how ya like to read your blogs), you're going to need a new method.

And I'm here to tell ya all about this new method for our TECHNOLOGY THURSDAY post!

So, a lot of us bloggers headed on over to BLOGLOVIN'.

What is Bloglovin'?

Bloglovin' is a reader, similar to Google Reader. You can see all your blogs in ONE place simply by giving them a "follow" on bloglovin.

Everyone is moving their readers over to other sources such as Feedly or Bloglovin'. But personally, I think Bloglovin' is one of the best choices. I have been on Bloglovin' for the last year (ever since I started blogging) and have thoroughly been impressed. It was the only way that I read blogs... I never used GReader.

BUT, say you follow hundreds of blogs... that's going to be a LOT to import one at a time by hitting the follow button on each.and.every.blog.

HAVE NO FEAR!

There's an easy peasy way to transfer all your followings that you have to Bloglovin' in a few easy steps, which I'll show ya below.

FIRST - Sign up for Bloglovin'. You can do so with your e-mail address or your Facebook profile - whatever you wanna do! But know that if you do with your Facebook profile, it will pull your information from your Facebook. 

THEN - You'll be prompted to import your blogs from Google Reader. Follow the simple steps to do so. 

Choose from which area - likely Google Reader.

Click accept when this pops up. It's just accessing your blogs that you follow on Google Reader

THEN you get this lovely status bar. I follow far more blogs than I thought I did.. so it may take a bit to import.

Enjoy reading your blogs in the same way you would have on GReader!

Cool thing about Bloglovin' that I like is that you can see how many unread posts you have at the top in the name of the website OR along the right side.

As you can see from my number of unread posts (3853), I'm a BIT behind on blog reading BUT I read a lot of posts by going directly to the blogs.

The other cool thing about Bloglovin' is you can see some details of the blog post without going. If something catches your interest, click on it! If not, click "mark as read" and move on.

You can also see how many people "like" a blog post or you can "like" blog posts to come back to them later... kind of like repinning something on Pinterest in a way!

OR you can share directly from Bloglovin'. Find a post you like? Share it with some friends!

Want to find out more about Bloglovin'?

MANY bloggers have posted their version or take on Bloglovin' - some have tutorials for setting up your profile, some have tricks of the trade (that I have yet to learn), and some even have tutorials for adding your own blog to Bloglovin'!

Check out some of these posts:

The Brown-Bag Teacher: The Death of Google Reader

A little more indepth of what I did above!

Ideas By Jivey: For the Classroom: Bloglovin' Update

Jivey gives us some hints, tricks, and some more details about Bloglovin' - check it out!

Once you've done all that above... make sure to follow me on Bloglovin' so you don't miss a thing!! I'd hate to have y'all miss some posts :)

TO FOLLOW: Scroll back up and look for my "+Follow this blog with bloglovin'" button on the upper right, directly below my other Social Media icons. 

REMEMBER: You have to click that blue FOLLOW button once it takes you to my blog's Bloglovin' page. It's easy peasy!

I hope this helped out some people and I hope some of y'all might have learned something new!

See y'all tomorrow for the second week of Feature Teacher Friday!! :)