reading for school....

I am so busy now I don't read much fiction. I can hardly wait to get all these papers written and turned in so I can read for fun! Just a few more weeks.........

Results from BLOGS

Ever since I have started to read about blogs and have subscribed to my bloglines (RSS Feeds) and I see evidence of them everywhere! A few articles have caught my attention so I have attached their links for your convenience.

The 1st is called "Putting the LAB in collaboration". A high school teacher has written it and ASCD has published this articile with links to the teacher's blog. http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/putting_the_lab.html

Another, from the the Guardain in the UK discusses recent research
that indicates children's spelling may not be harmed from texting. I know that has been a bit debate among educators. Are kids ruining their language skills by using IM? These researchers say no. To read the article, Texting slang aiding children's language skills, go to http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1869915,00.html?gusrc=ticke

A 3rd article is about The New Literacies Team from the University of Conneticut and Clemson. They want to boost disadvanted students' internet literacy by teaching the kids using the process called "reciprocal teaching". Reciprocal teaching is when the teacher teaches a learning process. The teacher reads aloud, articulates outloud questions, thoughts, speculations and analysis of the text. Then they hand the text to the student to do the same thing. This will ultimately take the kids beyond email, IM, surfing & playing games; thus enable them to be more critical users of internet text. Check it out @ http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstoryts.cfm?Articleid=6578

Results from BLOGS

Ever since I have started to read about blogs and have subscribed to my bloglines (RSS Feeds) and I see evidence of them everywhere! A few articles have caught my attention so I have attached their links for your convenience.

The 1st is called "Putting the LAB in collaboration". A high school teacher has written it and ASCD has published this articile with links to the teacher's blog. http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/putting_the_lab.html

Another, from the the Guardain in the UK discusses recent research
that indicates children's spelling may not be harmed from texting. I know that has been a bit debate among educators. Are kids ruining their language skills by using IM? These researchers say no. To read the article, Texting slang aiding children's language skills, go to http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1869915,00.html?gusrc=ticke

A 3rd article is about The New Literacies Team from the University of Conneticut and Clemson. They want to boost disadvanted students' internet literacy by teaching the kids using the process called "reciprocal teaching". Reciprocal teaching is when the teacher teaches a learning process. The teacher reads aloud, articulates outloud questions, thoughts, speculations and analysis of the text. Then they hand the text to the student to do the same thing. This will ultimately take the kids beyond email, IM, surfing & playing games; thus enable them to be more critical users of internet text. Check it out @ http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstoryts.cfm?Articleid=6578

Hang on - next time I will tell you about my new fascinating book: CONVERGENCE CULTURE!

Reading about blogs.

Lately I've been reading about blogs the new technology of the Read/Write Internet. The potential is amazing - my hope is we humans use the technology wisely. That may be too much to hope for!

Having difficulty with setting up my bloglines. This again is exciting technology but appears to be have more glitches and challlenges along the way than I am prepared for. I will go back - again - to Will Richardson's book to see if I can figure it out. Hereis a link to his web log for educators. http://www.weblogg-ed.com/

YAL - gotto love it!

To be a successful young adult literature book themes must be strong, & drama must include adolescent yet human issues of loss, identity, love, freindship, values etc. Many of the YAL books I've recently read have been excellent! Real page turners and really enjoyable after a heady day of reading news, professional books/journals and work. So dive in - here are 2 to get you started.



Raspberry House Blues by Linda Holman- 16 y.o. Poppy in search of her birth mother in Winnepeg, Canada. Despite turning up at her adopted father's house unexpectedly, he and his new wife welcome her warmly. They are slopppy but happy hippies and their lifestyle is a challenge - Poppy suffers much angst. Most importantly she learns about herself. Surprisingly absorbing w/ colorful characters!

Search of the Moon King's Daughter by Linda Holeman is incredible - you think your life is hard?! But be prepared for a tearful happy ending as young Emma searches for her brother - sold as a chimmey sweep - in London circa 1836. This book is an accurate historic portrayal of industrial life, poverty and people surviving in a brutal class based community. Since this is the one year annivesery of Katrina, I am reminded of how failure to provide for those in need has been an unfortuante human characteristic - probably forever.

Linda Holeman has a web page with news of all her books with reading guides etc.

"I find television very educational. Everytime someone turns it on, I go into the other room and read a book." -- Groucho Marx

So we all love to read! What are you reading these days? What piques your curiosity? Do you have a genre you are into it, an author you relate with, or are you spending time with non-fiction matters? Are you absorbed with news, current events, professional reading, art, book or theater reviews? What about recipes? Do you like to read and eat?! Do you spend your time with actual hard copy or the virtual? Tell us what you are thinking and what you read. Let's talk with each other.

Right now I'm divided into 3 areas: school stuff (textbooks, journal articles etc.) young adult literature (YAL), and daily/weeklies like the New York Times (http://nytimes.com), the Denver Post (http://denverpost.com) - save your time on that one, or Time magazine (http://time.com). I read a lot of education related material and get a lot of good links for articles published all over the country from both Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (http://ascd.org), as well as Phi Delta Kappa (http://www.pdkintl.org). For weekly news on national policy, from the Pew Research Center, you might want to check out http://www.stateline.org/ and http://eschools.com. Both offer educaters many ideas & links, for practical useage.

Hey! I'm just trying to stay up with what's happening out there in the big wide read/write world!