The Side Effects of the Interwebs

This summer has been awesome. I've had the chance to participate in amazing PD, have some fun with #Made4Math, travel to or through several states, and take plenty of naps!

One of the things that I think has been so amazing this summer is the unexpected side effects of #Made4Math and #TMC12. When @pamjwilson and I were talking about the awesome elementary blogs and their Monday Made It, I could not have predicted how popular #Made4Math would end up. For me, I love having the accountability and the structure/routine of something to post once a week. I am horrible about posting regularly, especially during the school year, so I'm hoping that the weekly #Made4Math will help me on that. But the best side effect of #Made4Math is the number of brand new bloggers that have joined in. I love that people that started blogs just so they could share their creations with the rest of us! I hope that #Made4Math has generated some traffic on their new blogs and encouraged them to keep on posting.

In a similar vein, #TMC12 had some unexpected side effects. Teachers that had read about Twitter Math Camp, but weren't on twitter, now have started up Twitter accounts and/or expanded their Twitter followers in order to keep those connections alive. I've also seen blog posts or even new blogs that started as a result of #TMC12.

As a result of both of these occurances, a new initative was born. One of the highlights of #TMC12 was the "My Favorites" session. These were short 5-10 minute blurbs about your favorite website, lesson, review activity, classroom management technique, etc. This was a place where everyone had a chance to present something to the group. Then, after #TMC12 was over and we had all gone home, @misscalcul8 tweets this:

After several of us responded affirmatively, "My Favorite Friday" was born. Check out the awesome logo that @mathtastrophe made for it:

So, what do you need to do? Glad you asked!!! On Friday, fire up the ol' blog, steal the awesome logo above, and tell us about something you love. It could be your favorite office supply, website, activity, video, strategy, anything you use/do in your classroom that you want to share with the rest of us. We eventually might have a theme of the week, but for now, just lay it on us.... What do you love and want to tell us about??

When you've written your blog post, don't forget to tweet it out with the hashtag #MyFavFriday and/or put it in the comments - we'll catalog them just like we do for #Made4Math (at least for now)

Happy blogging!!