Grace's PRABE week 2 - may14-may20
May 16th - 1 hour - Facebook (see "thoughts for this week" below)
May 17th - 30 minutes - news - mobile websites: "Mom upset after Wichita 2nd grade not given lunch" (from kwch.com); "Golden Gate Bridge to celebrate 75th anniversary" (from latimes.com); "A Facebook Co-Founder Reflects on the Path Forward" (from nytimes.com);
May 17th - 20 minutes - The Best School Year Ever by Barbara Robinson
May 18th - 25 minutes - "Facebook is tough to quit" (from kwch.com); "UW study supports existence of 'gaydar'"; "4 ways IPO will change FB forever"
Thoughts for this week
-It seems that Facebook was the biggest news that week (and for the following week as well but I'm getting ahead of myself). I, for one, spent more time than I wanted on FB (see log) but within good reason (I hope). What happened was a graduate from my old college major (department of foreign languages and literature) decided to create a facebook group where he proceeded to add friends who graduated to that group and an old classmate added me to the group... in other words, it was an college reunion group on Facebook for us. At the end of May 20th I noticed that there were about ...maybe.. 400 people in the group, spanning from a decade of classes (I was class of '01). Anyway, lots of people posted where they're at, what they're doing, that kind of stuff. Interestingly, because my alma mater is in Taiwan, I spent most of my 1 hour reading in Chinese instead of English. Reading Facebook nowadays for me is an exercise in both Chinese and English. Most of my Facebook friends are Americans, and some are Chinese. This reunion group wasn't the first reunion group that found me, my college graduating class of '01 had already formed a FB group a year ago, and we've used the group to plan meet ups and reunions (which, I haven't been to any because they all take place in Taiwan). About 3 months ago, my middle school classmates formed a reunion group on FB, and that was interesting because while I can still recognize most of my college classmates, I could barely recognize my middle school ones. Anyway, I think all these activities do demonstrate what that one news article says that "FB is hard to quit."
- I didn't really like reading "The Best School Year Ever." (I'm not finished, I think I'm on chapter 2 or 3). I read "The best christmas pageant ever" before, and I thought it was OK. Then I re-read "The best christmas pageant ever" this past Christmas because my 3rd graders were doing a unit on it for class so I read to them and we did some activities, and I just felt that yes the book was OK but it wasn't the greatest. One thing that bother me was that the author's writing style tend to go off on a tangent. Unfortunately I don't have the book in front of me right now so I can provide an example (I'm dog sitting at my mother-in-law's house right now), but I felt that my ESOL students had trouble understanding because the author used a lot of dependent clauses. (And some flash backs too, which were not always clearly stated.) Anyway, as I read chapter 1,2 and 3 of "The Best School Year Ever" I'm thinking to myself "Ok did they start the school year yet?" and I felt the plot was a bit muddled. Maybe that will change once I read more.
May 17th - 30 minutes - news - mobile websites: "Mom upset after Wichita 2nd grade not given lunch" (from kwch.com); "Golden Gate Bridge to celebrate 75th anniversary" (from latimes.com); "A Facebook Co-Founder Reflects on the Path Forward" (from nytimes.com);
May 17th - 20 minutes - The Best School Year Ever by Barbara Robinson
May 18th - 25 minutes - "Facebook is tough to quit" (from kwch.com); "UW study supports existence of 'gaydar'"; "4 ways IPO will change FB forever"
Thoughts for this week
-It seems that Facebook was the biggest news that week (and for the following week as well but I'm getting ahead of myself). I, for one, spent more time than I wanted on FB (see log) but within good reason (I hope). What happened was a graduate from my old college major (department of foreign languages and literature) decided to create a facebook group where he proceeded to add friends who graduated to that group and an old classmate added me to the group... in other words, it was an college reunion group on Facebook for us. At the end of May 20th I noticed that there were about ...maybe.. 400 people in the group, spanning from a decade of classes (I was class of '01). Anyway, lots of people posted where they're at, what they're doing, that kind of stuff. Interestingly, because my alma mater is in Taiwan, I spent most of my 1 hour reading in Chinese instead of English. Reading Facebook nowadays for me is an exercise in both Chinese and English. Most of my Facebook friends are Americans, and some are Chinese. This reunion group wasn't the first reunion group that found me, my college graduating class of '01 had already formed a FB group a year ago, and we've used the group to plan meet ups and reunions (which, I haven't been to any because they all take place in Taiwan). About 3 months ago, my middle school classmates formed a reunion group on FB, and that was interesting because while I can still recognize most of my college classmates, I could barely recognize my middle school ones. Anyway, I think all these activities do demonstrate what that one news article says that "FB is hard to quit."
- I didn't really like reading "The Best School Year Ever." (I'm not finished, I think I'm on chapter 2 or 3). I read "The best christmas pageant ever" before, and I thought it was OK. Then I re-read "The best christmas pageant ever" this past Christmas because my 3rd graders were doing a unit on it for class so I read to them and we did some activities, and I just felt that yes the book was OK but it wasn't the greatest. One thing that bother me was that the author's writing style tend to go off on a tangent. Unfortunately I don't have the book in front of me right now so I can provide an example (I'm dog sitting at my mother-in-law's house right now), but I felt that my ESOL students had trouble understanding because the author used a lot of dependent clauses. (And some flash backs too, which were not always clearly stated.) Anyway, as I read chapter 1,2 and 3 of "The Best School Year Ever" I'm thinking to myself "Ok did they start the school year yet?" and I felt the plot was a bit muddled. Maybe that will change once I read more.