Blog Reviews:

WOW!! What amazing blogs people had! I am sad now that I didn’t start before this. It was something that I kept putting off because I kept saying to myself “I’ll get to it later when I have more time and I’ve got this, this and this done.” But of course later never comes and another “this” always comes up.

I mention the pictures in the blogs a lot in my commentary below. I loved looking at the pictures that everyone had. Although I enjoyed reading what people wrote I found myself scrolling through a blog to first look at the pictures before I read. I have not traveled widely in Alaska. Mainly Anchorage airport (Ha! Ha!), the flight to Bethel and the village and my immediate surroundings, sums up my personal Alaska experience for the last three years. Sad, I know. Seeing everyone’s pictures of various spots in Alaska has made me very excited about my summer plans. I’ll get to (finally!!!) see many of the things that I have been learning about. My students are also very visual. When planning a lesson I try to find lots of pictures and graphs and hands-on activities on the subject understudy.

One of the main points that came to me while I was reading the blogs is how much I still have to learn. I kept my very simple compared with most. I am really not a tech person. But I realize that to benefit my students I need to incorporate more into my lessons. Looking at others’ blogs and by taking this class I have been given many ideas that I can work on incorporating into my classroom. I have absorbed much more information than I have been able to output. I have learned so much about the state and resources but I realize that I have just touched the “tip of the iceberg.”

Closing the Cultural Gap- When I read her blog it made me realize how much more I have to learn. There is so much interesting information out there! I loved her polar bear picture in Module VIII. What a statement it makes about melting sea ice! I found the blog easy to read and extremely interesting! Some of the other pictures did not load for me.

Alaska in Deep—I liked her “before and after pictures.” Those pictures truly illustrate the changing world around us. The statement she makes “Either way, the fact remains that humans are both at the mercy of, and are influencing changes within the atmosphere “ is very true. We are making our own bed. I also enjoyed (in a so-glad-its-not-me-kinda-way!) her story about being cut off by a fast moving tide. To me that would have been terrifying!


Dan's Alaska Connections-- I did like his plain background (some blogs I did have a hard time reading because of the color schemes). He had many good references and points. I found his pictures in his “Garbage Patch” blog very disturbing. I liked reading about the project concerning glaciers and seeing the pictures. I understand why he only goes back to visit his childhood home. The same thing has happened to the area outside of St. Louis. Subdivisions now take the place of woods and fields and it is sad to see it change so.

Explore Alaska Commentary- Wow! What pictures! **sigh** some of them didn’t load. Just plain white boxes… Maybe it is my computer? I found his blog very professional and appealing. It was well organized but not stuffy. It made me want to rip my own blog off the internet and hide it under a pillow. I loved the arctic food chain graph he used to help demonstrate his point of how it is all connected.

alaskaZgal-- I was still looking at blogs today and I’m glad I did. I really enjoyed her “Best Picture” awards. Now I will have to visit the few sites she mentioned that I haven’t visited. I enjoyed reading her blog. She has an easy, engaging style that I liked.

I think that I have read half of the blogs so far. I first picked out ones that I thought had the most interesting names. Then I went back and started writing my thoughts on random ones that I had already read. It was hard to pick and choose. I have enjoyed them all! Hopefully I will get to continue reading them this week.