I'm new at this social media stuff. Reading through blogs on the web, for our class at CNM, and now participating by writing one has brought up some interesting revelations. I don't twitter (tweet I think)-not really interested in finding out someone's on the toilet, eating a Burger King Whopper (really good-umm!) or someone just saw their significant other at the mall with their BFF (oh my god-I'm going to kill myself/him/her or all of the above). Give me a break-get a life! Reading a large number of these blogs just reinforces that the format has changed to be a 250-400 word tweet.
 There are blogs for everything. We are interested in readings blogs about education. What used to done in seminars, in-service days, and subject matter communities of practice, which presented the latest fad(s) du jour about Education, now find their way for all to read and write about, this time on line. Have you noticed that once they get a following, an Limited Liability Corporation, video series (maybe even movie) and a book deal soon follow? Readers get to exercise their democratic experience and learning by commenting about aspects or thoughts that they find important in this format.
 In this light, and issued for whatever it is worth, I recommend several education related blogs for your review.
First, please see learning.now (http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now), which is a series of varied types of Web Blogs brought to us by the Liberal Motivated Public Broadcasting Corporation folks. I was especially interested in those (albeit carefully selected, some even award winning) in the Math ones (all cutesy named) which described lesson plans and means to teach specific topics. These cutesy names remind me of teaching pre-school children Soccer Skills by doing "Sharks and Minnows" or "Escape the Land Crabs", effective, but still following a social style thought to be effective (We are all going to play a fun game!). PBS likes to focus on technology innovation areas which is on all of our minds today. Second, look at http://www.openeducation.net, a blog by Thomas J. Hanson (school district resource officer. Thomas looks at the processes in changing education today "providing an objective and subjective look at the issues affecting/fragmenting modern education". I like that Thomas tries to avoid the flavor du jour approach and speaks a lot about integration of technology to basic education issues and why they technology is impacting important social issues.
 Last, I really like and recommend that you look at the work of  Esther J. Cepeda, staff writer for the Washington Post. She is what we called a social activist in the 60's and is a Hispanic living in Chicago. She has written extensively about education issues, especially poverty and class issues, social media snobbery, and the failure to deal with students of color and students at risk. Esther writes two columns and one blog per week. Please look fro her "Change to E-Textbooks Neither Easy Nor Cheap", which addresses the move to e-learning (materials and processes), which should strike home to all us at CNMCC. My textbooks meet her criticism of being functionally useless and written to avoid making student be bored not to teach meaningful information. I contend that going paperless has added a whole new layer of frustration and will lead to lower graduation rates and successes. Your thoughts on this will be appreciated.