Reading Writing Responding

cc licensed (BY-SA) flickr photo by mrkrndvs: http://flickr.com/photos/113562593@N07/13713874174 Alan Thwaites posted the following tweet and it got me thinking. Not just what you Tweet Aaron, but watching how you use Twitter has been very clarifying for me. I appreciate it mate. — Alan Thwaites (@athwaites) April 6, 2014 How is it that I use social media anyway and more importantly, what does it mean to be a connected educator anyway? In a recent post about the benefits of blogging and being a connected educator,  +Tom Whitby  outlines some of the many benefits associated with sharing online. He states: The difference between writing a blog post and writing a magazine or journal article is the immediate feedback in the form of comments or responses. Before a blogger puts words to the computer screen the audience and its reaction are a consideration. The blogger will strive for clarity in thought. The blogger will strive for clarity in the writing. The b...

For a while, denial worked for me. I treated it like some sort of solution. However, I've learnt the hard way that denial is a coping strategy, a way of masking a problem, a way of pretending everything is ok. The issue though is that at the end of the day everything isn't ok and the problem still remains. I was reminded of this recently with the death of my mum of kidney cancer at the ripe old age of 54. I remember when she told me in the middle of last year that she first told me she had cancer and that it had already moved into her liver, I just thought that she would be ok. No matter that it would be incredibly difficult to operate, I just thought that she would somehow get through it. She overcame other challenges in life, why would this be any different? She didn't and it wasn't until the last few weeks that I truly realised the extent of it all. No matter that she hadn't eaten properly for six months, that she had lost much of her weight. Like her, I...