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You Should Read It

How many times have you finished a fantastic book full of so many ideas, and then struggled to tell people about it? You know the book is full of ideas you think would not only benefit you and your students but other teachers and their students. However the best you can muster up in a conversation is, "It was a great book,"  "You should read it," or "You would really like to read it." Not glowing reviews, even by Amazon's standards. 
 
If you are like me, chances are this has happened to you many times. I feel foolish I cannot articulate anything better than, "You should read it." (Makes me wonder how I can articulate enough to write my blogs.) And even worse, even though I know however great the book was I just read, I end up forgetting a lot of it. Sure I underlined or highlighted and made comments in the book, but those books ultimately end up on my shelf waiting for some company from the elf the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas eve. 
 
So what can be done to better articulate, remember, and put those ideas from the book into practice? While sketchnoting looks and sounds really effective, I am not there yet. However it does not mean I won't try that out someday soon. I think it is a great practice and something worthwhile. For now though, I like to do the following:
Wait one, maybe two days which gives me time to digest and reflect what I just read
Go back through the book and my notes
Make an outline from my notes in Google docs (this way I can access it anytime, anywhere)
Join in book chats on Twitter
Nothing extraordinary. Just simple things to help me make the book more relevant.
 
So far this summer, I have read Personalized PD: Flipping Your Professional Development by Jason Bretzmann, Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess, Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller, and Kids Deserve It! by Todd Nesloney and Adam Welcome. All four books I think are great, and really think you should read them.) With all the ideas I want to try out this coming school year from them, I know that I will forget a lot of what I read from them, unless I take a little extra time with them. 
The Twitter book chats/conversations for the aboved mentioned books are:
Personalized PD: Flipping Your Professional Development: #personalizedpd
Teach Like a Pirate: #tlap
Ditch That Textbook: #ditchbook
Kids Deserve It!: #KidsDeserveIt
These are so powerful because you connect with the authors and so many other educators. These chats make what you read relevant and memorable. It allows you to know what you just read so much better, and it allows you to better articulate all the wonderful ideas in the book. 
 
If you have another suggestion for being able to better remember and articulate books you read, please feel free to comment it below. I really would, "like to read it."

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