Directions for Book Blogging

Welcome to our summer book blog! Unlike most blogs that have one blogger- everyone gets to blog about the book, To Engineer is Human, and share ideas about K-12 engineering education and the "human side" of engineering. To reply to a post, click on Comments at the bottom of the post. To start a new post, click on New Post at the top right. However, to start a new post you have to have a Google account. If you don't want to register on Google, you can send me the text for your post and a title, and I will post it for you.

Who do we have on the blog? Our book blog consists of 16 high school teachers, 1 middle school teacher, 7 elementary teachers, 4 faculty or engineering students from the University of Maine, 3 MMSA staff, and 2 DOE staff. We have a diverse and well-rounded book group which should lead to some interesting conversations. One thing to remember- the most recent post is always at the top of the blog. If you haven't been on for awhile, scroll down and work backwards.

If you start a new post you also have the option of adding photos or other graphics as well as making a hyperlink. Play around with it a bit to get to know how it works. Try a test post- you can always delete it afterwards. Also, you will notice we will build a collection of links listed on the right. Since only the person (Page) with the Google account can add these, if you have any you would like to share, just send them to me at pagekeeley@gmail.com and I will post them for you. This is the first time we have ever tried this as a blog, so we're all getting our feet wet. Don't hesitate to wade right in!

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Welcome to Our Summer Book Blog!



Welcome teachers and University of Maine participants to our TIES and SCITEC summer book read. We chose Duke University's civil engineering professor Henry Petroski's classic book, To Engineer Is Human, for its engaging approach to explaining to the public what engineering is and what engineers do. I first encountered this book back in the late 1990's when I was working with AAAS/Project 2061 and this book was chosen from the AAAS list of recommended books and films for a teacher workshop Project2016 was designing around using adult tradebooks and literature to support the ideas in Science for All Americans.  This book was selected to use with the SFAA chapter on Design and Systems.

With the soon to be released Next Generation Science Standards, which will include engineering practices as well as understanding the engineering profession, we thought it would be fun and enlightening to read this book together, share insights and connections to the classroom, and discuss ideas for raising students' awareness and interest in engineering. This book blog is a "work in progress". Unlike typical blogs where there is one blogger- you all get to author this blog! Feel free to post an original posting or reply to someone else's post. The important thing is that you make it interactive and think about ways to promote learning and interaction among this group. Feel free to post photos with any blog postings- graphics that illuminate your idea or perhaps something you have photographed that connects to the topic. Feel free to add to resources listed on the sidebar (send links to me and I will post them). This is YOUR book blog so feel free to dive in and "make it your own." And...bear with us as we work out the kinks of using this type of platform.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 14, 2012 at 6:25 AM

    This will be my first time that I am part of a book blog. So excited to learn from all of you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dawn MarieJuly 16, 2012 at 5:18 AM

    This is my first time blogging, and participating in a book blog.
    I am looking forward to reading To Engineer Is Human, and sharing thoughts.

    ReplyDelete

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