Free-Reading is “an ‘open-source’ instructional program that helps teachers teach early reading.” Aimed at Kindergarten/First Grade learners, it is a collaborative means to establish an education program that combines the strengths of those who work on the project, and makes it available to teachers and organizations via a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.

Oh, and the State of Florida just added this program to their list of approved textbooks. Not only can they save a significant amount of funds that would otherwise be spent on texts, the class materials will be current and likely to be updated by a wide variety of professional educators.

found via Open Access News

Last summer I visited Daytona Beach in Florida. One of the many interesting places I visited was the Ponce de Leon Light Station at Mosquito Inlet.

They had an example of one of the “libraries” that were used by those who worked in the lighthouse service, which was essentially a wooden box filled with a variety of reading material. Supply boats would exchange the box for another with different books about every three months.

I thought I’d share a few of photos:

Just updated WordPress, not only because of security issues with the previous version, but in anticipation of a software update on my web hosting service that could have created a problem.

And so I decided to try installing a packaged theme, as well. I customized it a bit (my own picture at the top, and I changed the link colors to the standard blue/purple), but otherwise I cannot take credit for the new look and feel.

The picture is of of the Seabreeze United Church in Daytona Beach, Florida. I took the picture last August, while on vacation.

The theme is called “Connections“.