The Luxury of Follow-Through

For the first official day of my "summer vacation," I attended TEDxHouston yesterday. I put "summer vacation" in quotation marks here because there is very little that resembles a vacation that happens in my life between June and August. Those few weeks may be better described as working from home, or working at my own pace, or working until I feel like taking a nap or making a meal that doesn't come out of a box, but it isn't anything like the "summer vacation" many non-educators probably imagine.

But what the summer does bring for me is the luxury of follow-through. So after attending TEDx yesterday (if you are interested in my thoughts on the event see "The TED Standard"), I indulged in a morning of rifling through the goody bag I received at the event, checking out new websites, and, yes, tweeting and blogging. I put people in touch with one another, checked out a contest for a free computer for my school, and explored new resources. Oh, how I miss this pleasure of reinforcing my learning during the school year when I am, more often than not, distracted by so many details I can't think or running from one urgent deadline to the next.

And what does this tell me about the hectic nature of learning for my students? Definitely something to give more thought to...over the summer.

Digital Footprint or Digital Tattoo?

How would you describe your presence on the web? What are the implications of the metaphors mentioned in the title to this blog? Is there a better metaphor? How do any of these descriptive metaphors apply to you?