I've been a member of the blogosphere for just about six years, which is a long time in internet years. To give you some frame of reference, back when I started, Facebook had 150 million users, as compared to over a billion today, and I was not one of them. Twitter? 22.3 million then, 285 million now, me included. Neither Pinterest nor Tumblr even existed, yet.
I spent a little time this morning clicking around some of the blogs I used to follow when I began writing mine; more than half of them have been abandoned or formally shut down; their authors have married, changed jobs, divorced, gone off to college, had children, battled illnesses, moved on or just faded away. The other half are going strong, though, and it was nice to check in with those writers.
A couple of years after I started my blog, I challenged my sixth graders to begin daily writing, too. Those particular kids are sophomores in high school now, but a little quick internet research showed me that some of them, at least, are still writing. And just yesterday, this year's students began a hundred day writing challenge of their own.
Traditionally, I launch this activity on March 1, because that is the anniversary of my own odyssey, but this year the first is Sunday, so I pushed it to February 27, because I wanted to begin in class. Even so, I was concerned that kids would forget to post today, since it is Saturday and the campaign still so new. I needn't have worried: when I logged in a few minutes ago, 25 kids had already published their second slice of life, which is not bad for an optional activity.
98 days to go!
Who knows where it will end?
I spent a little time this morning clicking around some of the blogs I used to follow when I began writing mine; more than half of them have been abandoned or formally shut down; their authors have married, changed jobs, divorced, gone off to college, had children, battled illnesses, moved on or just faded away. The other half are going strong, though, and it was nice to check in with those writers.
A couple of years after I started my blog, I challenged my sixth graders to begin daily writing, too. Those particular kids are sophomores in high school now, but a little quick internet research showed me that some of them, at least, are still writing. And just yesterday, this year's students began a hundred day writing challenge of their own.
Traditionally, I launch this activity on March 1, because that is the anniversary of my own odyssey, but this year the first is Sunday, so I pushed it to February 27, because I wanted to begin in class. Even so, I was concerned that kids would forget to post today, since it is Saturday and the campaign still so new. I needn't have worried: when I logged in a few minutes ago, 25 kids had already published their second slice of life, which is not bad for an optional activity.
98 days to go!
Who knows where it will end?
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