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How Do You Prefer to Write?
When you write a blog entry, do you go straight to the keyboard or do you put it down on paper first? If the latter, where do you do your editing?
I’m curious if recording your thoughts is affected by age. I would think that digital natives (those who grew up with computers in the home) might be more likely to compose directly on the computer. Research shows that people who take notes, in a meeting or in class, directly on the computer retain less than those who use longhand. I have not seen research on how computer versus manuscript affects original writing. If you do other writing (i.e. professional documents, short stories, books), do you approach that writing differently?
If you would like to weigh in on this topic, to avoid revealing your age, just say whether you are a digital native or not and how you prefer to write. If you want to give more details, go for it!
I am not a digital native. I did get in on personal computers with the Apple IIe and have always had some kind of computer ever since. I was an elementary school tech teacher for 14 years out of my 34 years of teaching. I write my blog entries in a notebook and do first editing there as well. This preliminary editing can vary from changing a few words to a major rewrite. My final editing is done on the computer and does not usually involve major changes (i.e. the thinking has already mainly occurred and what’s left is grammar, flow, and typographical errors. When I wrote professional documents for work, I composed most of them on the computer and I am not sure why. Currently my only writing in retirement is blogging and informal digital communication which is, of course, written directly into whatever app I am using.
Dual Purpose Blog?
If you have been following my blog, you may have noticed a gradual transition from a focus on educational issues to a focus on book reviews. Actually I have not dropped my interest in developmentally appropriate education, and you will continue to see posts on that topic in the future.
I began “Education Pathways” when I retired from teaching and still had a lot to say about education. As I read the blogging efforts of others, I discovered many (mostly retired) educators saying a lot of the same things that I was saying. Suddenly I was not the lone voice speaking up for children. What happened? Part of the reason for this phenomena was certainly that I had more time to read when I was not wasting time trying to please administrators who had really strange ideas, provided for the most part by highly profitable businesses, about what is good for children. The other big factor is that a large number of frustrated teachers with lots of years of experience all said “No!” at about the same time: “No, we will not go down this insane path that is damaging to children any more.” With retirement, we found our voice because we no longer were threatened and intimidated by our employers. The result was a huge increase in the anti-CCSS (Common Core State Standards), anti-overtesting, anti-VAM (Value Added Model of teacher evaluation) blogging world.
At about the same time, I moved to Mexico (mostly) and discovered netgalley.com* which lets me preview books written in English, in an electronic format, for publishers in exchange for reviews. After a few rusty efforts, I began flexing my critiquing joints and discovered that I really like recording my thoughts about books. So, I set out on a different education pathway that involves reading and which I think intertwines quite nicely with my original focus of developmentally appropriate education.
In the future you will see posts about education and reviews of books for children with discussions of how they might be used with children. You can also expect reviews of books for adults which are soon to be released as well as a few from my own collection or e-books from the Gutenberg Project. My reviews contain little in the way of summaries. Those are readily available from the publisher, online bookstores, and Goodreads. I prefer instead to present my personal reflections on and reactions to a book. Since I can choose my reading material, I will only choose books I think I will like. For example, I won’t be reading and reviewing a horror novel, but suspense and mystery will certainly have a place. Please join me in the world of books as I continue the education that never ends.
*Many thanks to my daughter Tara for introducing me to netgalley.com. She immediately recognized the problem I would have in Mexico of feeding my reading addiction and provided such a wonderful solution which has blossomed into reviewing as well.
Three Day Quote Challenge–Day 1
My new blogger friend, Wendy from Ramblings and Musings, invited me to participate in this three day quote challenge.
The rules for the challenge are:
- Thank the person nominating you for the challenge.
- Post a quote on your blog for 3 consecutive days.
- Invite 3 of your favorite bloggers to join the challenge.
My nominees for the challenge are:
- David from David Snape and Friends, whom I originally started following because of an interesting post he wrote on autism. It is also through his blog that I discovered the fantastic Kindness Blog.
- Shellie from Shellie Woods who writes about marketing and life, from a Christian perspective.
- Kim from Learn to Love Food. Through her blog Kim has taught me about the need some children have for food therapy and her fun approach to helping those with food issues.
No obligation–just fun, inspiration and exposure to bloggers you may not have encountered before.
My first quote has been my favorite for years. It was my signature quote on my work email. I wanted it always there as a reminder to the “Standardistas” that accumulating facts is not what education is all about. Many education policy makers and enforcers (in my former school district and around the country) have forgotten that education is inspiring children to be lifelong learners.
education pathways 