Summer Things

I am reading some of the current player blogs for 23 Things and I find that I am a little jealous! I hope everyone is enjoying it and if they aren't, they will in retrospect. I can see that several players are from the same school and are commenting to each other. I know that enhances the experience. It makes me look forward to the next journey in the fall - though summer sure leaves more time for it!

An experiment

Apparently I don't have enough to do - I started yet another blog.

It, like this one, has a specific purpose. We are having author Linda Sue Park visit soon and I needed a way to introduce her books to the students but we didn't have time to read them. In these days of testing, I barely get to see the students! Parking it Here has a series of activities that one class is going through at their own pace and writing their posts which only I have the right to publish. The other classes will go through the activities as a whole group and then, hopefully, add comments to the student posts. It's not perfect. Getting the students from the class who is posting to return their permission slips has not been easy. While they are enjoying the experience, I'm not sure if they'll be any better prepared for the author visit. The blog itself is crazy with so many different people posting about different things at different times. You have to use the categories on the side to navigate. Choosing the category Activities will get you the 6 activities that the students read before they post. Anyway, if you're interested in having students blog without them each having their own blog, edublogs has a way to get them all attached to the same one.

If you, like me, don't have enough to do, please consider reading and commenting to some of the students. I also welcome any suggestions as to how to improve upon the idea.

Connections

OK, so this is not as good as Book Nook Girl's story of Barbara O'Connor but I was perusing the new resources sent to me by Teaching Books.net and came across the name of an elementary school friend. I had stumbled upon a memoir she had written a few years back so I knew she was an author but I hadn't realized she was now writing for young adults. Anyway, I read the interview, looked at her blog and then chose to post a comment just saying hi and congratulate her on her success. I didn't know if she would even remember me since we were very young when she moved away. I was a little surprised and extremely happy to find a comment waiting to be moderated in my inbox this morning from her! She found this blog and responded. VWB has continually reminded us how the world is shrinking and connections or reconnections are being made in this 2.0 world. OK, I get it.

Just playing