Twitter

I thought Twitter was really stupid and a real time waster at first, but I am now following a select number of educators who are technology leaders such as Will Richardson, Chery Lemke, Bob Sprankle, Kathy Schrock, Clarence Fischer,Vicki Davis, and several others. I find their "tweets" to be very relevant to the job I try to do, and following their links leads me to many areas of new learning. I recently followed a link and ended up on a blog by Matt, an instructional technology coordinator in Centralia, Missouri. He recently facilitated a classroom communication with a soldier in Iraq via Skype. What a wonderful experience for the students in that classroom. Here is a link to his blog:

http://www.etsreflectingpool.blogspot.com/

He also had some interviews with teachers just starting to get comfortable with technology and how it is changing their role in the classrooms. To date, I have not been able to load a sound file on my blog. I have been able to upload a video, but I didn't see any option for a .mp3 file. I intend to get in touch with Matt and have him help me. No one person has a handle on all the wonderful tools available out there for communication, collaboration and learning. "It's all about the conversation." If you haven't been following blogs or participating in online conversations such as those at http://www.edtechtalk.com/, I encourage you to do so. It' takes a little extra time, but the benefits are worth it.