New Years Resolutions, Looking forward as well as back.

First blog post for the New Year. The main purpose of this blog is to share ideas about technology integration and not sugar coat the problems that I go through. There is learning that can occur by listening and seeing the mistakes that others make, and using that to improve one's teaching. What I will share with the reader is the real front line application of 2.0 tools and technology in my Language Arts and Media Arts- Video Production classes.

So let's get this year rolling!

I was listening to the latest Seedlings Ed Tech Talk podcast tonight and they were reflecting upon the amazing things that they have accomplished over the past year, and it made me think- where will I be after a few years of working in a 1:1 environment? How did I get to where I am in such short amount of time? With all of these amazing tools out there, where do I go, and how do I encourage others who have not embraced 2.0 tools to give them a try? These are the things that are on a novice 2.0 teacher's mind this New Year.

Reassurance came from a comment from Sarah Sutter who said that a year ago, she had barely heard of the term Web 2.0. This was me! Finally, someone who has admitted that they had to start somewhere, and that in a short amount of time, they have made significant changes in their teaching. Sarah is now 0.5 technology integrator. It is scary when you scour the blogosphere how much experience in this area people have. Now all I have to do is to use my relatively recent entry into the Ed Tech field to my advantage. Suggestions? Youth? Not anymore? Enthusiasm? You bet. 

I too was a rookie in the technology integration field and a trip to NECC 2008 in San Antonio opened my eyes. In my multimedia classes I used technology everyday, but I was not using it effectively (or at all) in Language Arts. After NECC, I came home to find that I was getting 22 iMacs for my classroom from my school division and implementation of the

Where do I go from here? Just keep it going. Primarily, I have been using wikis and blogs in my classroom for all subjects, but am looking for feedback and a way to evaluate the effectiveness of their use. 

My recent efforts with Glogster will hopefully prove successful. Using a glogster education account, students are going to create online poetry portfolios linked to our class wiki. Sounds fun,  I'll share how things go!