Bloggy type updates

I'll be at EdCamp SF Bay in Oakland on Saturday.

I'm also going to Dan Meyer's Perplexity Session on September 10.

Say hello if you're at either.

I've also updated my blogroll. I've come to terms with the fact that people actually read this thing so I figure I should use my powers for good. I streamlined the blogroll to focus on a few blogs that I think "Deserves More Traffic." This is the same thing Scott McLeod used to do with DABA except that I'm too lazy to interview people and those people shouldn't expect a traffic spike. My inclusion criteria is that 1) Your blog is awesome and 2) You have less than half the Google Reader subscribers that I do. I'll update it on a monthly-ish basis and will drop a note at the end of a post.

Currently on the list:

Mimi Yang at http://untilnextstop.blogspot.com/
Mimi would probably be classified as a resource blogger. Her materials are well designed and she's got some good twists on the old standards. She's also got a really interesting life. After finishing teaching in El Salvador she's now starting a new job in Germany where she's teaching 7th to 12th graders. The post on implementing the mathematical practices in the Common Core is excellent.

Organized Chaos at http://welcometoorganizedchaos.blogspot.com/
Organized Chaos is one of my favorite elementary bloggers. She teaches at a really great sounding school she refers to as the Think Tank. She's got some really thoughtful posts on ed policy but what really stands out for me is how much she loves teaching. Kindergarten Book Club is one of my favs.

Dan Finkel and Katherine Cook at http://mathforlove.com/blog/
Go look at the pic here. The money quote,"This picture, to me, is like a little image of what math feels like." You will then spend the next hour reading through Dan and Katherine's archives all the time wishing you lived in Seattle and could attend their workshops.

abrandnewline at http://abrandnewline.wordpress.com/
This blogger is a real life friend of mine and it's probably cheating to put her here. But really I love how she writes. She doesn't usually blog about the nuts and bolts but as much as anyone, she really captures what it feels like to be a teacher. Her end of the year letter gives you a good sense of what she's about.

Dan Anderson at http://dandersod.wordpress.com/
I usually think of Dan's blog as a place to find really cool problems. Going back over it now I realize he's got a bunch of other good stuff too. He's also my Python teacher and the master of Project Euler. So he's got that going for him, which is nice.

Grace Chen at http://educating-grace.blogspot.com/
I was talking about Grace with another blogger in GChat and the convo went like this:

Other person: Grace is so freaking smart!
Me: I know. It's like she's always 9 steps ahead and is patiently waiting for me to catch up.
Other person:Yeah, but she's so nice about it.

That's pretty much how it goes. She thinks about education at a different level than I do. This post on pseudoquestioning sticks in my mind.

Brian Carpenter at http://noninertialteaching.wordpress.com/
Brian started slow with only 4 posts in 9 months and I almost gave up on his blog. Then he started churning out posts in May and has really caught fire. His modeling posts are excellent and a recent one on teaching girls (he's at an all girls school) was full of goodness.

Stephen Lazar at http://stephenlazar.com/blog/
He's one of the very few non-math/sci bloggers in my Reader and for good reason. He writes about the way history (always my least favorite subject) should be taught in this post. He's also an important voice in the world of (sane) ed reform.