Thing #11

I think all of the methods of finding feeds were easy: Google blog search, topixs.net, technorati, and Edublog Award Winners. However, I did like Google blog search the best because it brought up exactly what I was looking for and did not have a lot of stuff to distract me. Topixs.net and technorati had political news story and various heading and sections that made me loose my focus a bit. I was not really sure where to search and it did not produce as many results as Google blogs. I found feeds through Google that would be helpful to me as a teacher when I first have my own classroom and could use for ideas and information. There was a blog called Life as a beginning Teachers and I started reading it; I realized she had some great ideas and insights into life as a new teacher. There was other blogs for new teachers that I found interesting and that could be encouraging for those going into education as well, like Reality 101 is a place where new teachers share their thoughts and stories. I did find any unusual feeds in the activity or other tools to locate newsfeeds. Google blog search really provided all the help that I needed and it did not take long to find blogs I wanted to subscribe too.

I really liked reading The Cool Cat Teacher Blog post about creating your circle of the wise. I agree with what he says about finding the people who inspire you. As a teacher it is important to inspire our students and that is exactly why I want to teach: to inspire youth to read and want to read. If we do not find the people who inspire us, then why would we want to read what strangers think and have to say? I have never been one to just read autobiographies unless I was interesting in learning about a specific persona life. For instance, I read Shania Twain's autobiography by choice because I had heard about how tough her childhood was and her whole success story. But it was totally different hearing it and then reading her words for myself, her thoughts, and stories. I am truly inspired but what she has overcome and the outlook she has on life after what she has been through; her story made me appreciate what I have and not to take any of it for granted. I found it quite humorous that in his blog Cool Cat Teacher says, "Life is too tough to have real AND virtual people dragging you down". He is so right and creating a circle of the wise is a good thing to do.