Much like Dorothy dancing down the trail toward the Emerald city, representing all possibilities realized, I find myself fearfully excited as I pace down my own path of realizing technology idealizations for the classroom. Rather than stepping time to ,"Lions, and tigers, and bears," I tune to, "Websites, and Blog Space, and Nings, Oh, My!" Throw in a "twitter" and those dang Flying Monkeys appear in my mind's eye.
In recent weeks, I began creating a class ning, a social network arena on which my students can play "Facebook," but with content aimed toward English. I don't know how well that will work out. I have blogged and had students blog, but not having required posts/comments, only a few posts truly elicited remarks. On night's before due dates, my frosh. blog lit up with students asking questions and truly interacted with one another, as I hoped from day one.
Now, as a tech. coach, I am working with teachers on developing blogs, nings, OneNote notebooks, and more. Mostly, helping colleagues to create something with technology to use in their classrooms. I'm liking it much because I get to work with colleagues I might not ordinarily, have time to work, and think in other areas that then encourages more from me. I like that.
As for the rest, I have discussed much to many about technology uses. After the tech. conference out in St. Charles, the biggest topic I took away was Twitter and social networking, hence the amount of time into it lately.
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Nicole,
Working with colleagues is the #1 reason I was attracted to the position of Technology Coordinator. I will have the best position in the school district when my position is renamed to that of Instructional Technology Specialist (or something similar) where 100% of my time is devoted to helping teachers transform their technology ideas into reality.
Working with teachers right now during the Professional Development Strand session energizes me with new ideas. I agree with you that working with small groups of teachers is good but individual training allows a much more personal and focused approach to the training. I keep preaching this to our administration and I believe they agree this is the best approach.
It would be nice to teachers take this learning and realize that it is available throughout the school year - for free.
I'm quietly bragging about your use of your classroom Ning, as you know. Please let me know when I can direct more people to it. I know you mentioned you wanted to get more of your students involved, first. I look forward to speaking with you more about the pros and cons of using the Ning as more and more students join and utilize this site.
I'm very proud of your leadership and efforts to use social networking technology with your students!
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