Tonight I attended a webinar which had Steve Hargadon hosting Sir Ken Robinson discussing his book The Element. Since I knew yesterday that I would be attending this session, I downloaded Sir Ken's book onto my laptop Kindle and read about a third of it before I went to bed last night. (Stayed up too late.) While the session was not without a few tech issues, I was amazed that the Elluminate platform performed so well with over 500 attendees. The audience felt like a gathering of my personal learning network (PLN). It was a hoot to watch everyone place their star on the interactive whiteboard map to show their location. The world was well represented.
I feel quite comfortable using Elluminate, since I use it almost every Saturday morning, when I attend the Classrom 2.0 Live sessions. I have become a pretty good multitasker - listening, watching the chat, typing into the chat room, opening links, and posting links for everyone to view. But let me tell you, with over 500 people the chat was flying by faster then I could read it. I didn't get to make too many comments or post any links. I'll enjoy revisiting this archived session after it is posted at LearnCentral.org. I've also enjoyed adding to the discussion on the Book Discussions Ning that Steve started. I look forward to being able to finish reading Sir Ken's The Element.
I was always a passionate educator, but when technology integration became a buzz word that I wanted to learn about, I found my true "element". I love being a 21st century teacher. I should be retired since I've been doing this for 34 years. Well, actually I did retire, but I also returned to work. I am so excited to create lesson plans that are full of technology integration. I spend much of my free time guiding my own professional development through Twitter, Nings, blogs, and webinars. I want to learn something new everyday that I can use in my classroom. My fourth graders also add to my technology learning. When something doesn't seem to work quite right, I turn to them first before calling for tech support. They have solved the problem on many occasions.
I am grateful that I discovered my passion is to truly be a lifelong learner and to try and ignite that fire in every student I teach. What is your passion? Have you discovered your element?
