Random Thoughts

Writing is really important to me.  I recently discovered that the fact that I wasn’t writing regularly, and that I wasn’t really writing at all outside of this blog, was part of what was wrong with my life all spring.  I don’t know why I am so slow…

Anyway, I came across a site Go Write Now! that, if it continues, will be one that I want to visit regularly.  There are some writing prompts and some more general posts about writing.  Check it out!

Scott had an interesting post, The dopamine:yawn ratio that I read this morning before I went to work.  He talks about how many education blogs are kind of boring while others make you want to rush right out and bookmark them.

My first reaction, as I was reading, was that I am not so much looking for blogs that make me want to save their posts — although I save too many and seldom get back to re-read them.  (Have to learn that selective saving thing Stephen talked about in the video!)  What I am looking for in blogs are posts that make me think, that inspire me to extend the conversation to my own blog.

Over the years, I have severely limited the number of “name” bloggers I read.  They have a tendency to talk at a level that I don’t feel I can talk on.  I don’t like just reading without extending the conversation somehow.  Now, I am not  trying to say there is anything wrong with any of these big names or their blogs.  The problem, undoubtedly, lies with me.  That’s assuming there is a problem.  It took me a long time to learn to speak out and participate in discussions of any kind; I don’t want to give that up.

Scott goes on to say:

We all have different interests so the list of edubloggers whose dopamine:yawn ratio is high will be different for each of us.

and that made me feel better.  Maybe my eclectic reading is OK.

Of Scott’s list, I only read Will Richardson and Tim Stahmer.  I have read several of the others in the past, but they didn’t make one of the occasional cuts I make to my Bloglines account.  No real reason why.  They just don’t speak to me in the way that some others do.  Others like Patrick Higgins, Doug Noon, Teacher Dude, David Silver, and Martha Rankin.

Suddenly, having looked through Bloglines and picked out a few of the blogs I read, I see the pattern.  I am practice-focused.  I love to know the theory behind things, but I want there to be some practical application of the theory.

That’s probably why I also subscribe to EDUCASE’s Library Items and Open Culture.  And don’t forget Teach Paperless!

There are currently 183 feeds in my Bloglines account.  Too many, really.  So I will probably cut a few more here soon.  Like Scott, I will have to decide which ones really speak to me and which ones don’t.  That in itself is an interesting task, an opportunity to reflect on my reading, on my professional development. But for every blog that I eliminate, I will probably add two before the week is out.  That’s usually what happens to me!  So I never pare the list down too far.

So who do you read?    What can you learn about yourself by looking at the list?

Stephen has a great list of education blogs.  There are many blogs on the list that I haven’t seen before, and this is a great way to find some new blogs to read.  This is not an attempt to plug my own blog since it isn’t on the list, but I am sure you can find something of interest on the list.

At the NWP annual meeting, I met Art, who writes View from Room 125.  He is a 10th grade English teacher in Alabama.  You might enjoy reading what he has to say.

I have been a fan of Mike Rose for some time now, but I didn’t know he was blogging.  While it isn’t a real active blog, what he has to say about eduation is always worth reading.  Check it out here.

If you don’t know who Mike Rose is, you might check him out here on Wikipedia.  Out you could read his book Lives on the Boundary, in which he uses his own story to talk about education.

Welcome to the new home of Random Thoughts.  I have been threatening to move here from Blogger for more than a year and I finally decided to do it.

There were two reasons for hesitating: 1) There are a few people who read this blog, and I didn’t want to lose them; and 2) I didn’t want to merge Random Thoughts and Moving Along.  Somehow or other, I had always thought that I would merge the two blogs if I left Blogger, and I was reluctant to do that.  But last night I imported all of the old Random Thoughts (again!) to Moving Along, thinking that I would just bite the bullet and switch.  After that was all done, I realized that I could just start a new Random Thoughts here.  Duh!  So here I am!

And as for those of you who actually read this blog,please change your bookmarks.

Miguel has a new blog. This one is more about writing than anything else. It is a good read — as all his blogs are. He has made 20 posts in two days, so don’t wait too long to start reading or you may never catch up!

A while back I wrote that I wanted to write more about adult ed on this blog. I haven’t been doing that (I’m not sure what I have been writing about lately really!), but I am about to correct that right now.

I have been reading a great adult ed blog, Adult Education Matters. The most recent post linked to a number of surveys they do with their students. They have also linked to their course outlines, their student self-evaluation forms for each level, and just about anything else you might be interested in.

This is a tremendous resource for a program like the one I teach in. I am especially interested in the needs assessment survey and their course outlines. There is a lot of information available on the site. It will take time, but I am determined to really look it over.

Eric Langhorst has a notice on his Guerrilla Season Book Blog that the 2008 project will take place March 3 – April 4. If you want to participate (either as an individual or as a class), all you have to do is write him. The details are on the blog.

I hope to participate the project again this year. I read the book and participated to a limited degree on the blog last year, and it was a great experience. The author, Pat Hughes, interacted with Langhorst’s 8th grade students on the blog. This year he is promising new features, and I am sure they will be exciting!

I would encourage you to follow the project even if you don’t want to participate. (The book is very interesting, though. I really enjoyed reading it.) The blog they will be using this year is http://www.guerrillaseason2008.blogspot.com/. It isn’t really up and running yet, of course, but it will be before long.

I was looking again at the posts in my clippings file in Bloglines. And I discovered something interesting: I have probably half a dozen posts by Bruce Schauble clipped. Now, you might think that I would have realized that and started reading his blog very closely, but that was definitely not the case. Actually, I almost deleted Brice from my feeds a couple weeks ago. Looking now, though, I see a great Writing Project technique that I want to try using and a discussion of substantive blogging that has me thinking about the quality of my own blogging. I also had clipped another practical post with another classroom writing activity.

I need to read his blog more closely all the time. If you don’t read Throughlines, you should. There is a lot of great stuff there.