The thing I like about the blogs I read is that every time I read them, I find another great idea. Two blog posts I read today gave me great ideas I want to use in my library someday. The first is book trailers. I've read and seen a lot about book trailers, about having kids make them, but I didn't really get it before. Then I watched this book trailer on TLC = Tech + Library + Classroom

Now this is a professional looking trailer but boy is it it fun and catchy. Now I get how I can use them. I think these can be a great tool to get those kids who aren't "readers". They may find this visual much more engaging than reading the description or even a book talk. 


Reading the blog about the video trailer also lead me to A Year of Reading blog where I found another great idea. Here the author talks about getting to think of kids as readers and describing what that means. I think this can be really great and the list of items she came up with to start her 100 things about me as a reader list is great. Doing this kind of activity can really open kids up to the possibilities of reading as they may think of it in a whole new way. I would think it would be especially helpful to have kids share some of there 100 things to give each other ideas. Love these ideas. 


I also want to share that blogs are great for personal things too. I learn a ton about cooking, scrapbooking and fun activities to do with my friends and family through blogging as well. So although this is my professional blog where I can reflect about what I'm learning in Grad School and through work, I always remember that learning doesn't stop once I leave school. In fact, I taught myself photoshop through online scrapbooking sites such as this: http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/  Through this blog I learn about scrapbooking and about fun activities as the author, a pro at all this, shares her life and her love of scrapbooking. 

I recently had a great experience in reading a blog post and the related comments and I think it's a great example of how blogs can be used for greater conversation. 


First of all, I read the following post: http://www.walkingpaper.org/2917 and thought, WOW, what a great idea. As I continued to read the comments however, I started rethinking my initial reaction, as others brought up good counter points. 


This is something that happens often when I'm ready any number of blogs. I've heard some people argue lately that there is a reason people go to journalism school and that not everyone should be able to write whatever they want, but I disagree. I think this is the perfect example of the greater conversations that happen through blogs that aren't really possible by reading a newspaper. Sure you can write to the editor, but it's not the same as having that instant feedback and conversation connected to the original writing.  Letting only the journalists write, even if it's on a blog, limits the number of conversation that can go on.  Sure there are some bad writers out there, so we all just need to learn to ignore them, OR even better create conversation about the piece whether it's to improve the writing or the ideas in the post. 


So for this blog post I'm suppose to be writing about something I learned via a blog. What I'm saying here is that yes I've learned from this particular blog. I've gotten an idea that I could potential use  but more importantly I'm learning from more than one person. I'm getting more than one side of the story and then I can decide for myself what I think in regards to this particular topic. I will continue to learn from many blogs and the many conversations that happen in relation to them also. 


Part of that earlier conversation about who should be able to write and who shouldn't was around our kids and whether they know what is good and what is not. I see the point here but I guess I think it's important that we adapt to changing times and spend a bit more time teaching kids about reliability. Yes, that may take away time because it's an extra thing we didn't necessarily have to teach before, but the problem isn't going away, so we have to face it head on. 

Blogging is something I've been working on for about three 2 years now. It's not something I enjoy like many bloggers I know, but I do enjoy reading a lot of blogs and have seen some amazing things happening because of blogs or through blogs.

Kevin and I started a blog when we moved to India to stay connected with our friends and family and keep them up to date on our many adventures. While we did a good job for the first year or so on keeping it up to date, it soon became a choir that neither of us looked forward to after returning from vacation. I think in particular, I don't like blogging because I'm not confident in my ability to write for an audience.

I've also recently started this blog as a journal and reflection I've been doing in my graduate course work. This is a completely different sort of blog than our personal blog, although I still find it difficult to write here.

The interesting thing to me is regardless of how I feel about writing blogs, there are so many different uses and purposes of blogs. Blogging is a great way to create conversations, share ideas or just connect to others.

I also think it can be a great tool for student writing. Although I don't always enjoying writing for an audience, I think if students begin blogging in school as part of their language arts and other classes, it can become more natural for them to share their writing. I also think that when we write online, where there is an audience, we tend to put a different kind of effort into it. It's more important for it to be correct when more than one person sees it and it will always be out there. This is a great lesson for kids to learn early.