Day 4 - Connected Educator Month

I am spending this Sunday catching up on my posts for Connected Educator Month (CEM).

Saturday got off to a slow start as I slept in and nursed my head cold. Yuck! I spent the morning adding links to a Google doc that I will share with teachers at my school next Tuesday during one of our PD days. I have been gathering Common Core State Standard (CCSS)sites that I think will be helpful to them as we transition from our state grade level expectations to the CCSS.

 In the afternoon I went to school. I saw Brenda, my principal, and we chatted about what I would be presenting to the staff on Tuesday. She was so grateful that I have put together the Google doc to share with others.

 Tracy, the other fourth grade teacher, who will also be teaching math, science, and social studies to two classes of fourth graders and I did some brainstorming. I went over some Kagan structures with her, showed her how to log into our BrainPOP subscription, and set up her eBoard note. We created a 4th Grade folder in Dropbox so that we can easily share files.

Again due to not feeling well, I took an afternoon nap. I was supposed to attend a bon voyage party for friends who are moving to China for the next four years. I decided I was in no condition to party, so I dropped off dessert at Janet's house (the hostess) and said my good-byes to Vicky and Dwayne. Vicky and I talked about her Skyping into my class after she gets settled in in her new home.

Day 3 - Connected Educator Month

I am spending today catching up on my Connected Educator Month posts.

I hate having a head cold. You know the feeling - your head feels like the biggest bowling ball in the world and your neck aches from holding it up. I usually get a cold shortly after school starts each year. I always blame my students for giving me one. LOL  Well, maybe it will be over by the time I get to meet my new students for the 2012-2013 school year on Thursday, August 9.

Today my connections were on the local level. I went to school on the last Friday of my summer vacation to meet with the other three teachers on my fourth grade team. We discussed our schedule, the start of our transition to the Common Core State Standards and worked on setting up our classrooms. Since I will be teaching science along with math and social studies this year, I have reached out to several other fourth grade teachers in our district who have taught science to share any resources they might have to get me going. (Thank you Patti and Amy for sharing with me.)

After going home and taking a nap through an afternoon thunderstorm, I attended the Tim McGraw - Kenny Chesney Brothers of the Sun concert at the Superdome.

Picture Credits - Cold; Tim and Kenny 

Day 2 - Connected Educators Month

I was invited by Michael Graffin (Australia) to join the Hello Little World Skypers in May of this year. Since joining this group I have really expanded my global connections. There are over 100 educators from around the world who are members of this group. They use the IM feature of Skype on a daily basis to connect and collaborate. They share links to things they are working on, offer help with web tools to anyone who needs it. and share stories of what they are doing to integrate technology into their classrooms. Here is a map showing the location of the members who added themselves to it. You can get more information about them on their wiki.

Today I was and will continue to be busy being a connected educator.

8:00 - I did a Google Hangout with Theresa Allen (IL) and Janet Barnstable (IL) to work on the virtual PD we are presenting to Theresa's faculty on August 20. Steve Sherman joined us from South Africa, where he was presenting to a group of principals.

9:00 - I attended a session of the TxVSN virtual conference on blended learning. It was called "Preparing for Blended Learning" and the presenter was Lisa Fraine from the Florida Virtual School.

10:00 - I had a phone conversation with Tracy Zelden, a new teacher, who is joining our 4th grade team at my school this year.

10:15 - I did another GHangout with Dana Racanelli, in Texas, as she presented at a workshop to her teachers. We were joined by Lorraine from MA, Jose from Honduras, Jose from Spain, Steve from South Africa, Theresa from IL, and Janet from IL.

1:30 - I am doing a presentation with my buddy, Jan Wells from Kansas, for the TxVSN Virtual Conference. Our topic is "We Flatten Our Classroom Walls, Do You?"

6:00-8:00 - I will be doing a podcast with Jeff Bradbury of TeacherCast to discuss how teachers who participate on #4thchat on Twitter collaborate in our classrooms. Kim Powell from MI , Bill Krakower from NJ, and Nancy Carroll from MA are scheduled to join us.
** Update - Due to scheduling conflicts, our podcast interview had to be rescheduled. I felt a head cold coming on so I went to bed early. **

Okay, I off to continue my connected journey.

What are you doing to be a connected educator?

Choose2Matter - Day 1 of Connected Educator Month

I am glad that I was invited to join the Facebook group Choose2Matter. (Was it created by Angela Maiers?) I received an email on July 26 notifying me that Paula White had invited me. At that time there were a couple of hundred people, mostly educators, in the group. Today as I was checking out the latest activity from the group, I noticed there are now over 4,600 members.

Today is August 1 and it is Day 1 of Connected Educator Month. Being a member of Choose2Matter is a great way to be connected. I know that I will learn much from the people in this group. 

As I was reading the posts about how members of the group choose2matter, I came across the imagine above posted by Donna Baumbach that she created here. 

Here is how I choose2matter:

1. I will ask my principal to make Choose2Matter our school's theme. 

2. Print and proudly display the above poster in my classroom.

3. Continue my journey as a lifelong learner everyday.

4. Learn alongside my students everyday.

5. Tell and show my students each day that #youmatter.

I hope you Choose2Matter every day!

Finally, My ITSE12 Reflection

How does this happen? Seems like it was a week ago that I was so excited to be heading to beautiful San Diego for ISTE12, and now here it is two weeks after that event and I'm finally getting my reflection of my time at the conference posted. I know I needed some time to process my adventure and learning before I wanted to write about it, but I honestly didn't think it would take this long.

Being able to present at ISTE on a panel with Beth Still, Josh Stumpenhorst, and Nicholas Provenzano was an incredible experience and helped me hone my presentation skills. Presenting about Building Your PLN with Twitter Chats with Jan Wells, JoAnn Jacobs, Joan Young, and Jason Seliskar at ISTE Unplugged was an extremely emotional experience. (I broke down in tears.) Attending sessions and parties allowed me to deepen my relationships with present PLN members and begin building new relationships with new people I met.

I learned from Vicki Davis to think about your three big take-aways so that you didn't feel overwhelmed by everything a conference like ISTE has to offer, or get upset with yourself because you didn't get to more sessions. 

As I have spent time reflecting on my take-aways, I first had to revisit the goals I set before heading to ISTE. My most important goal this time was to spend lots of quality time with Jan Wells, my Skype buddy and virtual co-presenter from Kansas.  Jan and I have been collaborating for three years and would be meeting for the first time face-to-face. You can read more about that here. 

My second goal was to help ISTE newbies navigate the hugeness of this conference and get connected. I hosted a BYOBreakfast in the Newbie Lounge on Monday morning to get things rolling on that goal. I met and had wonderful conversations with newbies and they were grateful for any advice that I or others shared with them. 

I also had a third goal to spend some meaningful face-to-face time with as many of my PLN members as I could fit in during my time at ISTE. I made this a goal after I left ISTE last year feeling very badly that I didn't get to have meaningful conversations with more PLN members. I was going to make sure that didn't happen again this year. Due to the fact that I shared a house with 15 members of my PLN, this enabled me to do so with them. Each day I sought out other PLN members and had great conversations with them too. 

Do you notice an interesting trend with the goals I had pre-ISTE? I had set goals about conversations and connections with people. I was not worried about learning about the latest tool or teaching technique. Why? Well, I can learn about those things while sitting at home thanks to Twitter. 

So now on to my three best take-away from ISTE12. 

Take-away #1 - Conversations

 I'm not the best at setting goals and carrying them out, so I am extremely pleased that I was very successful about accomplishing the goals I had set before heading to San Diego. ISTE12 will go down as one of the best for the amount of time I spent having meaningful conversations with lots of friends, both old and new. It feels good to be able to say that. 

Take-away #2 - Student Directed Learning

I spent some time thinking back over what I heard during presentations and conversations this year. There didn't seem to be as much talk about tools or devices. I heard more about collaboration and next steps. I also heard less about blocked sites and more about best practices that are happening in classroom all over the country. I heard more about how schools are trying to let students have a hand in their own learning and follow their passions. Helping our students become life-long learners is so important to their successful futures. So is teaching them how best to use the tools and sites that exist, but are always evolving. I will definitely be keeping student directed learning on the front burner this year. 

Take-away #3 - Priceless

I made the right decision about spending the money to attend ISTE. Registration $300, travel and board $1,000, learning and memories priceless. Getting to spend eight days with Jan really was priceless. 

                                       Photo credit - Peggy George

What are your three take-aways from ISTE12? Are you planning to attend ISTE13?

Erin's Hosting a Huge GiveAway

I'm not to sure about linky parties and such in the blogging world, but I occasionally find some great giveaways and resources by following them. Today I discovered that my friend, Erin Klein, who I just saw last week at ISTE in San Diego is hosting a HUGE giveaway. Since I can earn more entries for a chance to win if I blog about her contest, I thought "Why not?" You can entry to win fabulous prizes by visiting her blog. Kleinspiration.

Meeting My Skype Buddy

One of my New Year's Resolutions for 2009, was to get into social media and learn how to build my personal learning network (PLN). By the summer of that year, I was feeling pretty comfortable with Twitter and Nings. I decided my next step was to find another like-minded teacher and figure out how I could connect our classes.

Enter Jan Wells, a fourth grade teacher from Kansas. Jan and I "met" on a Ning hosted by Jen Wagner. We both joined the Skype Buddies group on that Ning, and I responded to a discussion Jan had posted. We chatted back and forth on the discussion thread and realized we were very similar in our approach to teaching in our classrooms. We exchanged email addresses and eventually started IMing each other on Skype. By the time school started that year, we had a very rough plan for connecting our classes through Skype and projects hosted through Projects by Jen. We became Skype buddy classes. You can read more about our Skype adventures here.

Since 2009, Jan and I have been Skype buddy classes, presented together several times for virtual conferences, backchanneled on the Classroom 2.0 Live webinars, and interacted on Twitter. Fast forward to ISTE12 in San Diego. For the first time in our three year relationship, Jan and I met face to face at the San Diego airport. She flew in from Kansas on Sunday and decided to wait for my arrival. When I landed several hours later, we had a joyous "reunion". Yes, it was a reunion, because we had built such a strong relationship online thanks to social media. We were like two high school friends reconnecting at a class reunion. We picked up our conversation right where we had left off on Twitter for the days preceding our trips to San Diego.

We were picked up at the airport by Tim Gwynn and went to the hacienda where 15 members of our PLN are staying during our week at ISTE. It still amazes me how my connections on social media (mostly Twitter) have lead to some unbelievable opportunities and personal interactions with so many wonderful educators from around the world.

What wonderful opportunities have unfolded for you because of social media? Have you had one-of-a-lifetime experiences because of your PLN?