Thing 5

My continued challlenge is to check Bloglines and see what's new on the blogs that I am following. I decided to follow some chess blogs in order to vet them for my chess club members and I find myself only reading through my blogline chess folder once a week ( or once every two weeks) . I am convinced that successful use of RSS requires a change in habit. I am used to thinking about chess by myself or with a small group of people. Subscribing to chess blogs opens up a wealth of knowledge, but also undermines the comfortable universe that chess has always been for me. Once I start reading, I realize how vast a network of chess players there are and it is somewhat overwhelming. RSS facilitates global chess awareness but threatens the sufficiency of my local chess universe. I am forever comparing what our team and our individual players have accomplished to the talented young men and women who have made chess their life. Blogs in this sense force one to take regular stock of one's affinity, talent and expertise. Each time I log into Bloglines and I placed my cursor over my chess folder, I confront my fear of inadequacy. I wrestle with my true commitment to the hobby that has for years been one facet of how I define myself.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

I am participating in 23 Things because I am conducting an experiment this summer. My goal is to increase summer reading participation and to promote authentic reading and sustained reflection on reading. I have maintained a book club blog (tnbookclub.blogspot.com) that has pretty much flopped. I tried to use the blog medium to post questions and excerpts and students did not really respond to these prompts. I am trying a new approach by employing wiziq to be present online multiple times a week and provide a context and some resources for the books that our students are reading. I am hoping to stumble upon a method for balancing freedom and structure: I think students need the freedom to discover and the boundaries to linger/loiter long enough in one place to realize that discovery is afoot . Knowing that many/some people could potentially read this blog does not make me self-conscious (though I am trying to be better about typos). The blog remains an online diary until someoe engages me in conversation. This blog is helping me document my efforts to add substance to form. I subscribe to the very trendy notion that education should nurture a culture of evidence and a culture of mastery.