Tech and the Brain

This summer has been technology overload. Although I am comfortable with most things techie, I am nervous about the new year; starting with new technologies and new students is never easy, but I am also excited about the possibilities. Diigo is an interesting way to gather great websites for kids to peruse as they are taught new ways of learning language skills. Twitter is the most bizarre but perhaps most fun social networking site. What can you say in 140 characters? Not much, but OH so much! It also has the ability to link to other websites so it's another way to make sure that my students are viewing websites that are both relevant and inspiring in some way. We can teach them to surf the web in ways that will make them productive and engaged, but it can also be social. Diigo also allows for "mark-ups" and teaching good reading strategies of sites that may be challenging and not something they would normally read. I also have become more interested in blogging in general. I began using this blog as a healing process, but it has also turned into a record of what I notice, learn, read, and engage in myself.

I want my kids to use their blogs to practice their writing in the same way that an artist uses a blank canvas to practice, play, create and inspire. During my own grief period I was unlucky in that I shut down completely. I turned off. I was unable to read, write or think for several months. Then, slowely, and much more slowely than I wanted, it started to come back. I read a paragraph at a time, 20 minutes at a time. My pace was slower, I was slower in general. My normal quick, rapid fire thinking went away and I feared it was the curse that comes with great loss, but it's coming back to me as I write this and as I know I will read tonight little by little.

I engrossed myself in an abundance of TV viewing, lying on the couch, or bed and watching nothing at all really. I didn't really watch, I simply gazed and thought about other things. But, I'm coming back bit by bit. I'm seeing colors again. I'm tasting things again. It's all part of the bigger grief picture. My loss is total and engrossing and it has changed the way I view my world, so everything is different, but I'm moving on as best I can. This blog is just another way.