Always learning

Currently checking out the online presentations from ISTE 2010, an education conference in Denver, Colorado, USA running from June 27th to the 30th.

Another one finished

I'm finally getting through the pile of books that has been waiting forever.

Bill McKibben's Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet was a head shaker. Shaking my head 'yes' that is.  This book is well written, with enough stats to support the arguments, but not so many as to drown you in numbers. Growing up in an agricultural area, with parents that taught us how to grow food, may make it easier for me to understand his arguments for increased local food production, in organic, sustainable ways. Mixed farming is not a common dinner topic and I have a feeling that Mr. McKibben is assuming a level of knowledge that his readers may not have. Although, as suggested in chapter 4, you can always use the internet to gather the knowledge you need. I loved his suggestion that the internet can be used to create 'community' in ways that our modern lifestyles do not easily allow. His arguments about moving 'back' in someways and 'forward' in other ways felt realistic and well thought through. I haven't read any of Bill McKibben's other works, but I think I'll be checking them out now.

Just finished

Beth Gallaway's Game On! Gaming at the Library. This is such a cool resource. Gives some history to 'gaming'. It is a great resource if you are trying to convince someone of the potential good effects of gaming. Now to use my new found knowledge to plan a Rock Band tournament...

What I'm listening to now

Paper Tongues - check them out http://www.myspace.com/papertongues .

The Summer Rush

Meetings, meetings, everywhere a meeting... or something that draws me away from my regular routine. Whether it's homeschooling or Community Outreach what started as one meeting has spun off into several.

Then there is the stuff at work. With summer right around the corner I don't have a lot of time to get local teens involved in TeenRC, get the elementary school age kids registered for Destination Jungle (hoping the reading logs arrive this week), get the annual book sale organized, (is that really next week?), work on the library float for the Canada Day parade, change over the preschool activity kits, change 2, possibly 3 displays, and sit in on the inteviews for the new summer staff person. And that's just for these 2 weeks.

Eventual this will settle down and I'll remind myself how this all meshes together, usually. Thoughts provoked in one area, effect or influence actions in another area. It can be mind boggling as well as inspiring.

Oh yeah and I have to get a Father's Day card...

The First Post

I've done it! After thinking about it for SOOOO long, I've finally committed to keeping a blog. It will be interesting to see if I can keep adding to it.

I plan to make this a place to collect the random thoughts I have about a wide variety of topics. I'm always seeing connections between the work I (and others) do in libraries, as homeschoolers, as participants in virtual worlds, as travellers in the vast digital domain and as residents of this changing planet.

Even as I write this I'm thinking of my profile and what I said about me. Changes, revisions, are already rolling through my head. The blog roll will change soon too. I can add my delicious bookmarks and some of my other bookmarks. Perhaps I'll connect my Second Life® pictures, or my real life photography. I have one from both already.

This will be part of my personal "23 Things" project. Look it up, there are loads of different options out there.

Now if I could only get excited about that homeschooling report...