voice of bainbridge

Bainbridge Book Moms has a blog

Bainbridge Book Moms is a book club of 12 moms who live on Bainbridge. They have recently decided to post their reviews and comments on a blog.
That was part of the discussion at the first meeting of Bainbridge bloggers that was gracefully hosted by Julie and Ted this saturday. More about that when I get the pictures (as usual from Julie). You can already read an excellent report by Chris Holmes in Busker.
And yes one of the Book Moms, Mary Hager, is also a Dog Mom.
If you are looking for the Bainbridge Bloggers directory.

Computers and childhood

The debate about the technological $8.9 million is getting hotter. I am absolutely not convinced by the Superintendent's arguments and I am concerned with the eventual overcosts as expressed by several letters to the editors. Still my main concern is for the educational aspect. I found the following information on the site of the Alliance for Childhood and I strongly encourage you to look at what they are saying, along with what Voice of Bainbridge published earlier "Could computers be actually be bad for learning?" and books that could help to frame the issues.

Computers and Childhood: Millions of dollars are being spent to bring computers and the Internet to America's elementary school classrooms, yet there is little, if any, significant research showing academic gain from computer usage. Furthermore, the funds and time needed for purchasing           and maintaining computers drains resources from proven school essentials such as smaller classroom sizes, arts and music programs, and physical education.
Is more time staring at a screen what today's children need?

A portrait of Dana

Cathy has posted a very nice portrait of Dana Berg on the Bainbridge Buzz with the picture we reproduce.
Dana has been recorded several times by Voice of Bainbridge so if you want to hear her about their biking trips in Europe or eloquently promoting biking on Bainbridge (4 min). She is just one click away.

Yourhub.com

The Rocky Mountain News is an affiliate of the Scripps Network. As is the Kitsap Sun. They are starting an interesting web-based project called Yourhub.com. You can read about it in the Online Journalism Review. I hope the Sun will try to emulate the RMN and start using blogs and rss: there are a lot of local voices that want to be heard and our local newspapers are not providing the adequate on line forums. Also interesting, the Northwest Voice and the News Record that posts on its site reader's submitted articles and the Bluffton Today in South Carolina that provides blogs to readers (the picture comes from their site). This is what we should get! Closer to home, visit urbanvancouver.

14 and blogging

Anne is 14. She has started Le blog d'Anne as a school project but she keeps posting about what she is doing: swing dancing, rehearsing plays, playing Chopin.

Small bizz blogging

Blogs are becoming more popular with small businesses according to Inc. This information is also posted on the blog of Islander Kevin O'Keefe along with the fact that blogs seem more credible than other media.
Picture by Julie (again!).
 

Civic Blogosphere Projects

The New Voices Project mentions two local initiatives that -I think- could/should inspire us on Bainbridge. One is in Northfield (MN) while the other called Villagesoup is based in Maine.
The picture is by Julie.

Persistence

Thank you Walker for reminding us of Women in Black.

Your community on the internet

This is a project in Naperville, Illinois that is very much like what I envisioned for Bainbridge.
Is there enough community and business support to make it sustainable?
The proof will be in the pudding.