2009 in Review

I just finished reading Sylvia Martinez's blog post "Circle of Life: the technology using educator edition". It got me thinking about where my tech journey took me this year. My New Year's resolutions for the year 2009 were:

to build a personal learning network (PLN)

to expand my technology skills

and to start presenting at conferences.

Below I have put the highlights of how I accomplished my goals.

January:

I waited patiently as other 4th grade teachers in my district accepted the invitation to the Ning I created for us (on New Year's Eve). I wanted us to have a place to share resources and ideas. I watched like a proud mama as our membership grew to 31 during the year. Read about it and other things I did to begin to build my personal learning network (PLN) here.

I attended the GNOTM Conference. The best session I attended was one about special math days like Square Root Day, Odd Day, 100th Day, and Pi Day.

February:

I joined Twitter. At first I was just a lurker because I didn't "get" it.

March:

Somewhere along the line I learned about Classroom 2.0 Live and attended my first webinar using the Elluminate platform. I discovered that I'm not very good at multitasking. How does everyone listen, read the chat, and type all at the same time?

I created a Ning for the faculty of my school - Bissonet Plaza. I posted quite a lot of stuff, but there was not much interest from the other teachers.

April:

I added two posts to my classroom blog about Twitter and how valuable I was finding it to be. I kept thinking that I needed a professional blog for posts like this.

My 4th graders participated in the Earth Day Grocery Bag Project.

May:

I made my first VoiceThread with my students. I entered the lesson in our district's technology lessons competition and I won second place, between two high school lessons. I was thrilled to learn that I had won my very own Flip camera.

I am asked to present about Nings and blogs at our district's technology conference in August.

I became a STAR Discovery Educator.

June:

I applied for and was elected to the DEN Louisiana Leadership Council. I am one of four people on the LaLC and part of the blog team.

I attended a two-day inservice "Working on the Work Web 2.0 21st Century Skills" put on by my district. I learned more about Google Earth, Glogster, Voki, Blabberize, Photostory and other Web 2.0 tools.

I completed a four week online class to become a PBWorks Certified Teacher.

I started my professional blog. I realized that I wanted to post some things that are not appropriate to put on a classroom blog.

I attended "A Day at School" presented by Discovery Education at their headquarters in Silver Springs, Maryland. Then I traveled to Washington, D.C. to catch the tail-end of EduBloggerCon. I spent four great days at NECC09 and got to meet many of my online PLN face-to-face. I also attended my first TweetUp.

July:

I applied to attend the Google Teachers' Academy that was held in Colorado. I put my heart and soul into my application and video, but sadly I was not selected. Many members of my PLN helped me with the application process and consoled me when I wasn't selected.

August:

I did my first district-wide presentation at our Technology Training in the New Orleans Convention Center. I'm proud to say that it went well.

September:

I completed a very successful collaborative project via Skype with our buddy class in Kansas. I found Jan Wells and her fourth graders at one of the Ning's I belong to and we decided to work together this year.

October:

I found out that my proposal to present had been accepted for LaCUE {Louisiana Computer Using Educators).

November:

I completed the Technology Model Classroom Grant that was being sponsored by my district.

Jan's class and mine did another Skype project.

I completed my application for graduate school.

I completed my presentation for LaCUE in December.

December:

Jan's class and mine completed our "Paul Revere's Ride" VoiceThread project.

I presented at LaCUE with Alexis Western (one of the TI's from my district). I also helped Carl Gaines do a live stream session (via ustream) of one of Brian Mull's sessions.

I applied for Technology Leadership Master's Program at Southeastern Louisiana University and was accepted.

I participated in Jen Wagner's Holiday Card Exchange Project. I was one of 24 schools is Group Four. My students loved getting cards from all over the country and Canada.

I was awarded a $15,000 Technology Model Classroom Grant from my school district.

As 2009 draws to a close, I sit here on my laptop thinking it was a good year - it was a very good year. What do you think? How was your 2009?