I’m feeling quite ambivalent today and that’s not good when this is the one day of the week I guarantee a post! I’ve had a 4 day Ice Vacation and school tomorrow doesn’t seem quite promised. If we don’t go to school tomorrow, we will go later at the end of the year so we can afford the luxury of being safe. The situation in Egypt should be giving me cause to be vocal. If I were to speak out, I’d want the US to keep out of it because when we do act, it’s only in our own interest. Democracy is a slippery thing. If I did speak out, I’d speak of my disappointment that students here in the US in too many school systems are unable to follow this major global event on Twitter.

Pew Trust has been doing studies on the use of technology with teens and they come up with interesting trends among teens of color, not by income level but by color. They’ve found that teens of color dominate Twitter with the vast majority of tweets to be social in nature.  A small part of me wishes I had the confidence to share my personal life and thoughts on the Internet but most of me wants to maintain the delusion that privacy still exists.  So, I don’t have a problem with young people chatting away on Twitter, my problem is with schools that choose to filter it (and Youtube and FB and MySpace) rather than teaching students how to use them effectively!

Did you see them Tweeting during surgery on Grey’s Anatomy last week?

Why not teach students how to find/follow trends? Discern fakers? Be 140 character-concise? How to build lists and maintain professional relationships on Twitter and FB? That, my friend is 21st century literacy! I know, we have to filter to get the federal dollars and to keep students safe but, how safe are they in a democracy if they don’t know how to access and acquire valid information with modern technology? The Egyptians have learned how to do it!

I guess education and technology and literacy makes me a little less ambivalent.

We got four more inches of snow last night. I love snow! I love to look at it and play in it! This past week I longed for my ice skates that I lost several moves ago.  Now, it’s snowing. Still and again.

I’ve really been enjoying 28 Days Later this year. Reading it feels like meeting with an old friend. Are you reading anything special for Black History month? I’m reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for a book group at work. What an incredible story. When I finish that, I’ll go back to “The Other Wes Moore”. I think both of these adult non-fiction books belong in a school library as they both, in different ways, relate the power of individual African Americans in society.

If you’re still reading, I have a little bonus for you! Here’s an Interactive Black History Calendar I spent too many days making last week.