I never though I would ever gonna say it, but reading blogs is lots of fun!

The style of writing itself is what gets to me the most. Throughout my education I was I was always steered into reading articles and books written in a very specific way that most people would call  scholarly.  That is one way of putting it. Unfortunately, those writings would often end up being soooo boring.  I would spend more time thinking why the heck don’t they write in a way that more people would understand and actually enjoy reading instead of writing those looooooooong sentences using so profound and smart sounding words.

So, reading blogs turned out to be a very refreshing and positive experience. The other reason why I really enjoyed reading it was that most blogs I had a pleasure of reading were written in a very personal way. I had a feeling I was reading somebody’s diary and I loved. There, of course,  has to be some content of interest, but finding the balance of interesting content and a good and personal style of writing is what works best for me.

I had no trouble choosing the blogs form the given list that were of interest of me.

• Letters of Gratitude was a touching read and it also gave me some ideas for future service learning projects. When tragedies happen (such as the one in Haiti) we all want to help. I am not a big fan of fund raising, but sometimes that is what is needed the most. But how do we then make the whole process meaningful and educational for our students – especially if we live on the other side of the globe and cannot help in a direct way. That’s  when this blog comes handy so make sure to read it.
• Questions for One of Our Favorite Authors: Grace Lin was such a cute read. Third graders wrote a letter to one of their favorite authors asking her questions about her inspiration, editing her work, etc. You can also read Grace Lin’s reply. So cute – maybe because I’m a  librarian!
• The Myth of the Digital Native was a different read than my first two blogs. I REALLY agree with what he is saying. The terms digital natives and digital immigrants have been a keen topic for some time now and I really appreciate finally reading a more realistic view on it. I also really like his examples.
• Is this SSR – 2.0 ? is a post from a third grade teacher in which he describes his struggle with SSR – sustained silent reading, or what I call D.E.A.R  -  drop everything and read. The end of his trouble was when he turned his students to read blogs during SSR time. As much as I now see the benefits of reading blogs, I cannot agree with this. I am all in favor with embracing technology but not to that extent. We, then especially, need to dedicate  time for children to actually read books – not blogs. And when I say books  – I mean books for pleasure – something that they want to read (not us). Something they are actually interested in and will enjoy reading.
• I had a little bit of trouble locating this post Power Point Reform, but it worked great in the end because I registered to newsletter and found other interesting blogs and bloggers on the way.