It has been  over a month since I’ve written in my blog. It has been a couple months since I meaningfully engaged in learning conversations on Twitter. And I’m still feeling like I’ll be disconnected a while longer. And so I chose now, when I’m tired, and have been up for over 20hrs to sit at my laptop and type. Can’t get to sleep, not focused enough to do work, and not able to compose a blog post like I would normally be able to. So, here are a few things bouncing around in my head.

1. I have really enjoyed the recent presentations my students have done about our school. Students Talk about Learning at Inquiry Hub, presentations at middle schools, and our open house. At the Open house, one particular occurrence ‘tickled’ my principal, Sarah Husband, and I. It was the end of the presentation and all of our volunteer guides were at the back of the room. I started to tell our guests to go and meet up with a guide and one of my student leaders interrupted me. “No, actually Mr. Truss we decided to do it another way.” And so she took over and organized the tours. Wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

2. Report cards went out today. Some of them were wonderful. Some weren’t. I know that happens everywhere, but we are a small school, and I feel like every student should get a report that highlights growth and encourages improvement. I think we still have a lot to learn about learning. For next year we are going to propose weekly or bi-weekly times when all of our staff meet to talk about students, and strategies, as well as to collaborate and model some of the shared learning we want to see our students do. For the rest of this year, we need to find the time outside the schedule.

3. Fracking, Pipelines and Fukushima. The hunger for energy has and will have catastrophic consequences to the world my children will inherit. I have never really focused on environmental issues on my blog, but these are topics that you might see coming from me in the future.

4. Memes. There is a wonderful Meme going around where you share more about yourself and ask others to do the same. Thanks to those that have invited me to participate. I will likely pass this time, but I did play along four years ago:  7 things, 3 tags and 1 confession.

5.  Not Everyone Is Able to Tweet and Post Who They Are. This is a brilliant piece by Chris Wejr. “I have been attacked for my views on education and sometimes these became personal; however, I have never been attacked for who I am or who my family is. For those with a personal social media account where they share all of the joy in their lives and happen to be gay (expand to LGBTQ), it is a sad reality that, because of societal views and judgment from others, they feel they cannot share this personal joy in their professional streams.” Posts like this remind me that the lens through which I see the world is shaded with privilege. Posts like this make me miss the time I’ve spent blogging, reading blogs and having things like this shared on Twitter.

6. Twitter spam. I really don’t get it? An account gets hacked, the hacked account sends out Direct Message links to websites that somehow access your login information for twitter when you click on them, which then sends out more Direct Message links to websites to do the same again. Where’s the gain? (ps. No one said something bad about you, you weren’t caught in an embarrassing photo… Don’t click on that link in a Twitter DM!)

7. Why are lists always up to 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 or 15. What’s wrong with having 8?

8. If you were to choose a topic for me, what would you want me to write about?