Good Reads

Boing Boing will go dark on January 18 to fight SOPA - great explanation of SOPA by Cory Doctorow
Also from Cory Doctorow is The Coming War on General Computation.
Ned Potter, over at thewikiman, has a great post about spoon feeding students. It isn't the standard argument.
Shawn Ram has a post, It shouldn't be about the NUMBER, on his blog Learning to Lead, Inspiring to Change, that should be mandatory reading for all parents.

It's Done

My youngest son participated in the local high school's graduation exercises recently. After almost missing his opportunity by not having his correspondence courses done in time, he pulled it together and managed get both courses finished. He had a great time dressing up and being on stage with the other grads. The formal dinner was great and he managed to get a limo ride (limos are very rare in our small town) with his friends before the after party.
My mother was here from Ontario and she really enjoyed all the pomp and circumstance.

Now, of course, he has to pass his diploma exams.

September

It may not be fall on the calendar but with the start of September, fall is in the air.

This week we've been working out the kinks in youngest son's school schedule. I'll have to go in today and finish paperwork. With a combination of in school classes and distance learning I'm hoping we can work with his need for a consistent schedule and for more time to get things done. Having a moderate reading comprehension problem means having to read and reread things, discuss and discuss again what things mean and what is being asked. It can be very frustrating for him. Reading things out loud helps but he feels this is for 'babies'. We'll be doing it any way. :-/

I've also been working on upcoming programs for kids and teens. Story times will start resuming mid September. The Teen Outreach Worker and I have decided to try some teen programming at lunchtime and after school. The teens around here are busy with sports, clubs, work and family. Trying to connect with them means going to where they are. So we're going to try a weekly read during their lunch break. The school doesn't allow the kids to eat lunch there so many of them go to the Activity Centre and eat from the concession, or bring their lunches and use the big tables. The place is currently being renovated but we are hopeful that we can find a corner to use. They will be able to pick the book I'll read to them, then it will be 1 or 2 chapters each week. The after school program we're thinking of will focus on food (teens are always hungry after school.) We went with after school to try and catch them before they get busy with activities or work. We're hoping to find a spot in the school (home ec room maybe?) were the kids can come, make a snack (nutrition learning), play some games, and just hang out for a while. This will also be once a week to avoid too much conflict with other activities and take up less time for us. I'll be doing this as a volunteer because my work schedule doesn't fit the time slots we're dealing with.

I also have a bunch of tech training to do for Overdrive and for the new website, a conference to attend, a shopping trip to the city to plan and a visit to my aunt to schedule (she is the busiest woman on the planet ;-) ). By then fall will really be here and it will be getting ready for winter time - gardening, home maintenance, Christmas, etc. I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

Perhaps it really is fall?