Week of 10/28

I just came back from a mini - 4 day vacation to southern Illinois where we visited several parks in the Shawnee National Forest.  The landscape there is spectacular, especially with the fall colors.  I  encourage everyone to visit Garden of the Gods State Park.  It can be a little disconcerting with young kids and dogs, since there are no hand rails or guards and everyone is tempted to climb on the rocks and view the steep drops.  I wonder how many people get hurt here each year.  We had a large group of 9 kids, 2 dogs, and 7 adults.  Trying to organize this group to anything was a bit of a challenge, but we manage to enjoy camping in the cold and hiking.  At least it was not raining when the kids were there.  Cold and dry is doable as long as we had a big campfire.

 

Garden of the Gods State Park - photo from http://www.shawneeforest.com/Hiking/GardenoftheGods.aspx

While I was on this mini-vacation I read the assigned material from "A community of voices: educational blog management strategies and tools", which was a very interesting article.  I would like to learn more about blogging since I have written a first draft of a book and I have heard that I need to learn how to advertise my book through blogging.  This may also be a great concept for my class to discuss controversial issues, so I look forward to learning more.