Monday, January 31, 2011

Reflection Journal.One

 

I subscribed to several blogs and websites, three of which include The New York Times’ Learning Network, Black Looks by Sokari Ekine and The Crunk Feminist Collective.  All of the blogs and websites are inspiring me to consider new ways of creating learning content for my ELA classroom.

The Learning Network is an online source for teachers and educators to find classroom teaching ideas about content found in The New York Times.  Students and teachers can take part in the conversations that happen online by responding to opinion questions, taking quizzes or adapting lesson plans within a variety of subject areas and grade levels. I decided to describe to The Learning Network because I like to use current event and news content as motivation for my lessons.  The Learning Network makes doing this type of activist teaching possible.

Another blog I subscribed to is Black Looks whose principle writer is Sokari Ekine.  I first heard of Sokari through a close friend.  I subscribed to Sokari’s blog because it is updated daily and the topics cover a wide range of activities and musings about education, religion, social justice and social trends.  Most recently she has been writing and sharing about the important issue of gay persecution in Uganda and the death of one of Uganda’s leading gay rights activists, David Kato, who was publicly targeted by the Ugandan government and murdered this week in his home.  Much of what Sokari has been writing about has inspired me to use my classroom as a space to inform students on things happening around the world.

The third of several blogs that I am following is The Crunk Feminist Collective.  This blog is actually a collective of women educators and activists of color who support and encourage collaboration, debate and challenge amongst each other.  I subscribed to their blog because I know that I can always get a range of topics and opinions on topics around women’s issues from a diverse body of thinkers.  In addition, they cross post with other blogs including The Feminist Wire which is another great women’s issues blog creating online content for the world on a daily basis.

(I took the "Imagine" pic in Central Park)