What I Learn From My Network

The sign above is courtsey of Clay's Beyond School blog entry. I've been thinking for days now how much my teaching is being enriched by so many wonderful people.

Yesterday, the principal's secretary had printing troubles. The principal asked me to come and fix things first period. She would watch the computer class once I got things rolling. It happened to be the class with her son. When she walked in, the class and I explained that they would be creating an image in KidPix to welcome kids from around the world to our class' Classroom Braids wiki project. I explained with the class that we would be learning about the similarities and differences of students in Georgia, Washington, Brazil, Maine, California, and Australia.

Today, she was asking me about a conference I'll be going to next week. She wanted to know more about the topics of Education 2.0 at the college down the street. I explained that one of the teachers I communicate with mentioned it and asked if I was going to be there. I didn't even know it was going on until I got a message on this blog a few days ago. The person happens to read Lisa's Lingo blog and found me. It ends up being Kevin Jarrett who presented the SecondLife: K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds at the K12 Online Conference. I listened to Kevin's whole presentation and learned a lot there, too.

I come back to Twitter again and again because there is always something there that interests me. SusanT just started following me this past week, and I found a great little VoiceThread ABC book with requests for drawings from one of her tweets. I also followed a link from MariaK to her KinderKids blog. Two great examples for me to share with the primary teachers.

Last year, I explored iMovie with the eighth grade. They created video Public Service Announcements about what you can do on the Internet. I never put them online because I never got around to permission slips from the parents. It was a spontaneous project because iLife came with the new iMacs I got last year. This week, I saw a great example from the Coolcatteacher blog. I only looked at two on the main blog page, but what great examples to show my students this year in addition to the samples from my students last year.

I still can't wait to get to Dean Shareski's tutorial on using the green screen. I am certain that I'll explore that by next year, if not this year.

I used to figure out great projects to do with my students. I have no apologies for what I've taught my students over the last five years. That said, my sixth year at this school will surpass all others simply because of the shared knowledge that I now have thanks to everyone named and unnamed who contribute their shared knowledge with the world.