I have “borrowed”, well stolen actually, this blog idea from Claire Thompson of Clarify Me.  I thought it was a great idea as a January reflection. Thanks Claire! Mimicking is the highest form of flattery! Really, a published Canadian author told me this!

I first heard about Web 2.0 one year ago, January 2008.  Betty, our Simon Fraser University Faculty Associate came up to give us TLITE students a workshop/introduction to Web 2.0.  I had to look up Web 2.0 in Wikipedia! After the workshop I got a little excited.  Prior to the workshop the tools I could/did use were:

• MS Word
• hotmail – I actually had to be shown how to add an attachment!
• tablet – some drawing on my daughter’s tablet
• Google Search – very, very basic

I never do things in a small way.  It’s the full monty or not at all!  See what happened in 12 months!

Now I frequently use these tools/sites for Social Networking

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Delicious
• Classroom 2.0

I frequently use these tools/sites on a regular basis:

• Google Reader
• Google Search
• iGoogle
• gmail
• MS Word
• MS PowerPoint
• Firefox
• Edublogs – learned how to put in one of my own pictures!
• Bibme – great online site for creating a bibliography
• hotmail
• Inspiration Software
• Booktagger

Tools/sites I have used occasionally:

• Elluminate
• WizIQ
• Yugma
• Blogger – I started my first PLE blog there, but moved over to Edublogs
• YouTube
• TeacherTube
• PBWiki
• Google Docs
• Google Presentation
• Google Calendar
• coComment
• Technorati
• LIveJournal

Some tools I would like to learn more about and use more proficiently are:

• Google Notebook
• SKype
• Diigo
• PBWiki
• Wink – a totally cool tutorial creating tool!

Some sites I use for Professional Development are:

• Classroom 2.0 – they have great on-line presentations using Elluminate
• TappedIn – absolutely LOVE this site.  I will be bringing my 2 upper intermediate classes here in a virtual classroom
• Knowschools – have taught me everything from tagging to blogging to wikis to Everything Google!

I also attempted to try the 31 Day Comment Challenge.  Crashed and burned. Failure.  I also gave up on the tablet thingy too as well as digital scrapbooking.  There definitely is something to be said about hands-on art!  I even joined Oprah’s book club for Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, just to see what that was like. Don’t even ask!  There’s a limit even for flakey Liberal Arts folks. Yeesh.  Oh yes, I also managed to embed a YouTube video into a PowerPoint presentation with the direct help of my daughter’s friend and a techie from Future Shop! Haven’t a clue how we did that.  Something about using an FLV converter and Divx. Huh?  I even made a slide show for a school I was temporarily working at using an IMac! Ha, I hate Macs, but have you seen the whole Mac Goes Green thing!  I so want a new Mac!  Just saying…you know, putting it out there.

I figure the learning curve was pretty steep.  Learned a huge amount.  Also discovered the true meaning of “Information Overload”! Now I try to stick to learning ONE thing at a time!

In all seriousness, I pushed hard to come out of my comfort zone, stressed myself out, slid into a funk or two, all because of an absolute belief in the value of using technology to enhance curriculum.

So, what tools to you use?

Did the noob twit tweet more?  Nah, I was too busy being stressed out, finishing that field study, report card marks no one cared about and starting a new research project with the wild ones!  Who had time to tweet!

Oh, but what did I learn in the 3 days I did lurk around Twitter, you ask?  Sharing time!

Who gave me Dean Shareski’s blog to follow?  I owe you some fierce chocolate!  Dean, you rock! Thank you from this teacher who taught art from grs 4-7, hosted an art show with a colleague, did Speech Arts – choric drama division for 5 years and ran teams in the local book battle. Ms. Rhee needs to come visit me.

There was more. Finishing that field study did not release my stress.  I decided to spin into a professional funk.  Matter-of-fact, I decided to have down right pity-party.  I was going to spin down deep and revel in some self-indulgent, attention-getting funk.  With my tea in hand I headed off to read blogs and to hell with teaching, technology and the rest of the world.  I needed my Dan Meyer fix.  What do I find on his blog – the rule of least power, then I remember Phil Macoun’s post about teacher power and jeez, there goes my funk, I’ve got a challenge!  The glacier starts grinding.  I look up Claire Thompson’s blog and she is discussing controlling the information students are given!  Ok, you guys, thanks for blowing my funk out the window! I had such a good plan for that! BTW – these guys are all on Twitter, well not sure about Phil.

Had a great small group research lesson today, I let go of the teacher power, the info control and worked on the rule of least power concept.  Great time, except, in true me style – I don’t have enough info for these kids to do the research they want! HA!  Murphy’s cloud has found me yet again! (Point is, you realize, I had enough info until I let go of the control of it!)

Next wonderful learning experience from Twitter came from none other than the amazing Sue Waters of Edubloggers.  Notice the images in my last post.  Yep, thanks millions, Sue!  That just opened up a whole new world of blogging. Discovered that teachers down under are just as reluctant to embrace technology as those up top!

And lastly to bookminder who post a pic of North Van that made me remember how much I LOVE visiting Vancouver, and realize how much more I like this. (Sue, you so rule!)

I guess I’ll stick around for another week and see what it brings and revisit that tweet challenge.

I get to do all the fun stuff.  I get to be the fun teacher!  If the students are going to come to me once a week for research, it might as well be FUN research.  So I get a brilliant idea (look out, my brilliant ideas usually end up with me asking someone to shoot me the next time I get a brilliant idea), that the next project will be Extreme Environments! HA!  How cool would that be?!  But I want a hook, something to fire up my students to my brilliant idea.  A PowerPoint!

Why a PowerPoint?  Well I spent last Friday in a seminar learning how to make one.  Now I’m not just a “noob twit” out there in Twitterland.  I happen to be a “noob” out here in techieland too.  Last year at this time I was thinking I was all that when I finished learning to use WORD! In Jan of last year I first heard about Web 2.0 and had no clue about what it was.  Its been a journey.

Back to the PowerPoint. Three days later I have forgotten how the Master Slide thing works, my seminar was shown on PP 2003 and I have 2007.  Hmm, things are not starting off  great.  But perseverance pays off and I manage to get titles, animated text and pictures.  Looked for the best of the google images I could get.  I even had an explosion going off for the volcano picture!  Impressive! I added music from a sound track.  HA!  Noob managed to get that right after about 4 attempts.  All in all this 17 slide show took 4 hours to complete! Jeez!

At school I set up the laptop, projector and even have the screen down!  I have discovered there is a plug in in the floor so I don’t need the 4km extension cord any more.  Noob has a serious headache today.  Thinking is worse than usual and all noise is a major issue.  Head thinks it is a bowling ball in a 10 pin alley.  Students come in and are sweet and quiet for Noob’s headache.  Press F5 to play PP – notice I know this shortcut.  No sound!  Have absolutely no clue how to connect the sound system up to the laptop.  Good thing the students quickly point out the class techno man.  Our resident 10 year old who could work at Future Shop as a techie works at the sound problem.  We played that PP part way two times before we got the sound!  It was a hit as big as Twilight and I’m going into the movie making business!

In all seriousness, the 4 hours spent making the PP to show 4 classes was worth it.  The images really helped the kids pick an environment that had a strong appeal to them.  Who can resist images of penguins, baby polar bears, exploding volcanoes and the inside of the International Space Station?  The hydrothermal vent initiated a lot of discussion, especially the seaworms. I had images I hoped would appeal to both genders and it appeared I managed that.  They were excited to get their hands on the books and look and share the information they discovered.  It was a good day.  Next time that PP will only take 2 hours! I am learning and expanding my beliefs about technology and education as well as my skills in using the technology in a networked school environment compared to at home.