Some Great Reading

I'm catching up a little on my reading and also delaying the final piece to my grad school paper. Here are few thoughts on some things I've read lately.

Kate Olson, who I've gotten to "know" on Twitter posted this a while ago. She writes about the changes we have to make when communication with people around the country or the world. It's something one never really thinks about. When we are talking to colleagues in our building or our district, much less our neighborhood friends, we are thinking locally, not globally. In contacting teachers for my state project to schedule video chats, I really got to thinking about what Kate says. She mentions adding F when talking about temperature and also noting the time zone when scheduling chats. Has this ever crossed your mind? Of course not, but I sure got myself a close up of the time changes when scheduling my chats. Is Arizona one our behind Wisconsin or two? What about Alaska? Wow, what an eye opener. Thanks Kate, for raising my awareness of this. Do you need to start preparing our students to think this way? I think so.

If you work with kids and are looking for great websites to use, you have to subscribe to iLearn Technology. I've already come across a few sites I was unaware of just by following along.

I love reading Learn Me Good (even though he's a Duke fan). The topic of this entry happens everyday. We tell students a lot to mind their own business, to stop tattling on others, and to ignore the crappy behavior others might have. Is this what we do as grownups? Just a thought.

I just don't know how I feel about this post. Joel seems to be trying to drum up readership for his blog, which I enjoy reading, but I'm not sure if I agree with the way he's doing it. I didn't realize Joel was an expert on blogging. I took from his post (and I may be alone) that he knows a lot about blogging and what makes a great blog. Hmmmm. In this entry, he talks about how his Blog Revolution and 6 ways I would benefit from joining the revolution. He says by joining, my blog will get more exposure, my blog will be better, my readers will enjoy it better, yadi yadi yada. Really? Just by joining the revolution? Maybe I'm missing something. I'll follow along, probably gaining some good information, but is a blog successful because it has a lot of followers? Is it better? I'm not sure.

If your teaching job and outlook improve when this happens, you won't be Pissed Off! You've got to read previous posts about life in the trailer. It's unbelievable these teaching conditions exist.

That's it for now, more thoughts on other great reads to come soon - probably after Thursday when my final paper is due for my last grad class! :)