Hello, October

First, I need to say PUMPKIN!

It's my favorite flavor. I particularly love pumpkin-flavored coffee or coffee creamer. I drink much more coffee this time of year not because of the temperature, but the flavor. Love it!

And now to ReadWriteThink-related topics.

The Android version of the Trading Card app is still in the works--I received a couple emails about that previously, and if I told you that it would be out by the end of September, I apologize. I think we will be closer to mid-October. Sorry. At least we have pumpkin-flavored coffee to hold us over, right?

Word Mover has moved to beta testing, so that is crushing right along. I'll share another Wes original with you after I do my test run.

I will down at the Diamond State Reading Association (DSRA) meeting tomorrow in Dover, DE. They are one of IRA's affiliate councils. This gives a chance to interact face-to-face with teachers and talk about ReadWriteThink.

And speaking of face-to-face, last week...no, two weeks ago...the editors of RWT had one of our face-to-face meetings between the NCTE team and the IRA team. I always love our in-person team meetings. I feel like it fosters a better work environment and improves communication. It's always fun, and I do enjoy getting to see Lisa and Christy and to catch up.

We went over site traffic (up 16% overall!) and where RWT is getting hit, what the trends show as areas to improve. We've come up with some interesting ideas for future fixes. We plan on revamping some older lessons, and we'll of course keep fixing the old interactives (Venn Diagram is already in the works).

The Professional Development side received a lot of traffic this year, which we like to see. We're now discussing how best to improve this section: what's work? What isn't? What's there that shouldn't be? What are teachers looking for when they go to that page?

If you've gone to the Profession Development section of ReadWriteThink, what did you think? Did you find what you were looking for? If you have any thoughts on what RWT can and should be providing, let us know!

More big things to come as we design the work plan for 2013. I'll keep listing out the cool things as they come up. It's an exciting time of year.

Because pumpkin flavor is back in season!

Wes