Digital Learning and Teaching
Chuck Frey develops a series of tweets by Howard Rheingold into a great list of tips for cultivating a Personal Learning Network.
Katherine Sokolowski shares what can happen when students connect with authors on Twitter.
Franki Sibberson shares some excellent ideas for introducing blogging to her students.
Reading
I love Gigi’s photos of the book stacks around her house.
Which picture books would you select as the 10 you can read with your eyes closed?
Need some recommendations for the upcoming #diversiverse reading challenge? Vassily has a terrific post recommending newish releases. She also has some smart words about why it’s important to read diverse books.
Number Five Bus is back with a wonderful interview with Matthew Cordell.
Kelly Jensen visits my states for a great Literary Tourism post for Book Riot. (I live in South Dakota and work in Nebraska, so I claim both.) I’d add Kathleen Norris to the North Dakota writers. Her book, Dakota, is a wonderful look at what is unique about this region.
Teaching Reading
Donalyn Miller and Pernille Ripp both tackle the dreaded reading log in blog posts this week. Wondering how offended my sons’ teachers would be if I forwarded these posts to them?
Evolving English Teacher begins to get to know her students as readers and discovers that many of them struggle to remember any books they’ve enjoyed.
Writing
One of my favorite writers, Sage Blackwood, reminds us that it’s time to start planning for NaNoWriMo. I’m looking forward to reading her NaNo prep series with tips for planning.
Gene Luen Yang delivered a memorable speech at the National Book Festival arguing that writers should write outside their comfort zones and include more diverse characters.
Teaching Writing
Crawling Out of the Classroom revised her writing curriculum after asking some questions about the purpose of her first unit. I love her new idea of starting with a unit on gifts of writing and hope she’ll blog more about that.
When Melissa Guerette discovers that her students believe good writing is perfect, she encourages them to make a mess.
Real Education Reform
Powerful op-ed in the Washington Post by a classroom teacher who takes on the insanity of evaluating teachers, children, and schools using tests that no one will see–before or after the assessment. Her solution: transparency in standardized testing. Hear hear!
Will Richardson poses 19 questions I wish my children’s school leaders could answer.
the dirigible plum 
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