Why I am writing this post today....Well....right before summer was out, I received this email from someone from whom I did not recognize the name in the "from" box. I was intrigued, and so I opened up the email. This was the email:
Let me say hello. I am Jim Bellanca, editor of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Blogazine (P21.org) and a friend of Rob Riordan. In searching for fresh contributions to the next issue of the Blogazine, (the topic will be SDL)I scour the Grad School's site. In the past, I have also used posts from UnBox and Rob has posted as well.
In my meanderings through the GSE Portfolio's, I found the SDL postings in your portfolio. I am inviting you to contribute one of the following for the SDL issue. (deadline, July 2): (1) a fresh post on SDL (2) one or two posts edited from your wonderful essay on SDL. Each post is 600-1000 words plus any sketches, links, charts, photos etc that you want to add.
For the SDL issue so far i have stories from several public school teachers or principals (pre-K, middle and high), a reasearcher, a grad of the d school at Stanford, two high school "makers". Each tells a story to illustrate what SDL looks and sounds. like. None are like what you have written.
If you are willing and able to spread your word to an audience that is primed to hear it, I need your response so I can pencil you into the schedule, 600-1000 word post, your photo and 2 sentence bio and your social media connections. If you are too busy at the moment, with your permission and final review, I can edit a post from your article. Prefer you however.
Thanks and let me know.
I was pretty honored to be asked to say the least. So, I busily got started on writing up my post. And through a few revisions, I was ready to send. I was asked to write two posts through the process which was shocking as well. The only other thing was that I was asked to post, but I was not guaranteed it would be published on the blog. Then on August 18th, I got this email from someone from P21.org telling me that my two posts will show on August 19th and 20th. Wow! I was so honored! I cannot believe that I have an article/post in the same blog as Rob Riordan, Carol Ann Tomlinson, and so forth. Crazy and so unbelievable. I guess this is the first step to getting my word out about my thoughts on developing self-directed learners.
Click on the following link to read my posts - http://www.p21.org/news-events/p21blog