21stcenturyed.com

I took last Monday and Friday off from work. Monday was spent wrapping up a visit home to see my folks and a side trip to outlet shops in the Poconos to get shoes for the kiddos. Friday was a series of doctor appointments – all good reports on that front. While Monday was relaxing and Friday was enHEARTening (sorry – little cardiology joke there), these two days “off” resulted in twice as many days spent playing catch up. I had over 185 unread emails to plow through on Tuesday – just as many the next day and the next. All of this left me totally unable to keep up my Real Life – not to mention my Online Life.

I just wanted to let you know I am okay and not trapped under something heavy that prevented me from blogging and Twitting – just under a bunch of emails.

So – guilt has driven me to blog. Guilt about not communicating with people who – for the most part – I have never met in Real Life. I didn’t bother to call my mom to apologize for not calling during this time, but for the Edublogosphere and the Twitterverse I am wracked with guilt about this. What does that say about me? What does that say about my mom?! Maybe it’s because she hasn’t turned me onto any killer apps lately.

But seriously – what is it about The Network that can draw you in so close that you literally can feel disconnected form it so easily?

Ah – If I were Spiderman, eSchool News would be my Green Goblin. Prepare for a short rant…

In their top “news” story, they cover the terribly violent video that was posted on YouTube recently of a Polk County Florida teenage girl being detained and beaten repeatedly by a gang of her peers. No doubt – it was an awful thing to have happened and difficult to watch (though I dare say most of us didn’t turn the channel when it was shown on the news). eSchool News adequately described the sad nature of the video, and reported that it drove outcries from the girl’s family and others that sites like YouTube should screen for this type of content and block it from being posted…but then they went one step too far.

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