Mediactive by Dan Gillmor

How has media publication changed?  How will it continue to change?  As we move further into the digital age, we will be creators and producers of the news, rather than passive receivers.  Gillmor offers many insights into media and journalism in an evolving climate from managing your online presence, to being a skeptical consumer of information, to trustworthy media/journalism and plenty of ideas and suggestions for improvement. 

All of this begs the question, what are we teaching in schools in order to prepare our students to face the media of the future?

Author Dan Gillmor is the founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and writes an online column for the Guardian newspaper.  He also runs the website mediactive.com.

Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen

The Great Gatsby meets Romeo and Juliet…this historical fiction novel is set in New York City and surrounding suburbs during prohibition.  Of course, girl falls in love with boy, boy falls in love with girl, then they discover they are from rival families.  The story was moderately engaging, but I was distracted by the lack of historical accuracy.  I don’t believe young ladies in 1929, would have behaved in the way these characters are portrayed.  Apparently this is the first in a series and I believe the second historical fiction series for this author, her first being The Luxe.

Goals Update: July - September

Here we are, beginning the fourth quarter of 2011 and it’s time to do a goals progress update and see how I’m doing on achieving my goals.  Here’s the break down for third quarter.

1. Get published.

This one is still in progress.  I’m over the sting of a second rejection of our article.  Now my colleague and I have done a major overhaul and are going to shop it around to another publication.

2. Read more books.  (Goal of 50 in 2011)

Forty-nine!  That’s right, 49 books read.  I am going to blow this goal out of the water!  My average is 5.4 books per month.  I’ll admit that six of these books were picture books, but even if you subtract those from the list, I’ve read 43 books and will definitely meet exceed my goal!  

3. Blog more often.  (Goal of three times per month)

I’m still kickin’ it on this one.

July = 4 posts

August = 8 posts

September = 7 posts

We’ll see how long I can keep it up now that school is back in session…

There you have it, my goals update for the third quarter of 2011.