Thing 23

Take a few moments to reflect on your journey. You've covered a lot of material over the past ten weeks. What does it all mean? How has your thinking changed between Thing 1 and Thing 23? Do you see the trends that Hargadon writes about in a different light than when you read about them in Thing 1? Has this program changed how you view the Internet or how you view education in the digital world? What plans have you made for using these tools in and out of the classroom? How will you continue to learn about Web 2.0 tools? What are your big "take aways" from this experience?

I definitly see myself as more confident in using these tools.  Some obviously more then others but I think that can be expected.  I still think the amount of technology and information can be overwhelming at times.  However, I understand that this is what teaching is becoming.  Our students are exposed to technology everywhere and it is essential that I try to do more. 

I was at a conference last month and we were on break eating lunch.  I took out my computer and was emailing back and forth with a few students about some questions they were having.  The teachers I was sitting with were shocked that I would email students on a Saturday.  I told them that it was either that quick 2 minute email then or it could be a stressed out 7th grader by Monday who also had their parents stressed out.  I'll take the 2 minutes.  It was just so weird to me that they thought emailing on a Saturday was me be technological.  Wow,  I just hope that my sons and daughter don't have teachers that out of touch.

As far as the tools that I have used in this Web 2.0 experience.  I am a thousand times more confident in creating a blog.  I also love the podcasts.  I'm sure I will spend more time on there searching around.  I have used google docs for a few years now and will continue to use it to collaborate with my teaching partners.  Overall finishing the 23 Things has been a good experience to explore the many tools available to educators.  Now if only I could remember all my usernames and passwords :)