Thing 7a: Building a reading habit
I must say, I have never really read blogs, except a friend of mine who had a brief stint writing one for the former Jane Magazine (a how-to blog on dating in New York City). At any rate, after my harmless experience of adding blogs to my Google Reader, I perused several recommended blogs of interest. The first blog I ventured through was Weblogg-ed by Will Richardson. One of the first posts that caught my attention was “Not the Dumbest Generation” in response to Mark Bauerline’s book The Dumbest Generation. I have not read the book yet, but may want to read it to see what points Richardson supports and refutes and how my own reflections as a teacher connect to his ideas. I read a similar review of the book in Newsweek, so I was happy to see how many contemporary issues these bloggers include in their posts. Richardson’s succinct posts and overall style really appealed to me. The quality and style of writing made me call into question my own writing style, something that has been non-existent with most of my posts so far. The premise of the book, from what I gather, is that these so-called techno junkie kids use social networking devices so much and it has contributed to their intellectual downfall. However, Richardson refutes Bauerline’s claims, “My interactions using social tools have definitely expanded my vocabulary, improved my memory, improved my analytic abilities, made me a more discerning critic and all the rest. And I would believe that many reading this would agree to those shifts in their own experience. Networks push our thinking. Networks can push our kids’ thinking.” If Richardson is right, that these social tools do help students be better critical thinkers, then maybe we all have to do a bit of experimenting this fall. Although I don’t want my students handing in their text messages for a grade, several other Web 2.0 tools seem too promising to ignore.
