Dream come true for an internet lover!

I made the mistake tonight of setting up my reading area right next to my twenty inch computer monitor. It certainly made it difficult to concentrate! The whole time, all I wanted to do was go on the internet to check my twitter, read some blogs, explore these webquests, google stuff, find an excuse to make a glog/figure out what that was, maybe check facebook, youtube a favourite song and read some articles about how teachers were using tech. Really anything online seemed much more appealing than what I was doing! And this is not because I don’t like reading or what I was reading, I just really, really like using the computer and the internet. This is not new for me, I have always loved the internet and I have always been a fairly early adapter to new tech tools. I mostly like free things and things that help me explore the internet but I never really focused my joy of all thing web on anything specific An example of my often misdirected addiction, I had one follower on twitter for an entire year and I still used it. ONE! (that really makes it quite pointless and I don’t recommend it by the way) but I was determined to figure out what all the (nerdy) fuss was about. Eventually it caught on and here we are, using it to become better educators. That makes me really happy. But I often thought of my love for the internet as just a hobby and in my younger years was more or less discouraged in my house, especially during the dark, dark days of dial up because it tied up the phone lines (not to mention was incredibly slow). I liked the internet and I have always seen its incredible potential as a personal tool but I didn’t really expand that to think about how I really use it. I actually have taken some technology and education courses in the past but it still seemed really far off to use these technologies in the classroom, but now I see people are using tech tools in their classrooms! It is happening, people. And the best part is I can even see me using them! I loving having a reason to obsess over and check out online tools. Tech tools will help me be a better teacher and they can help your students learn more effectively. Oh, and they are fun :) It can be overwhelming because there is a lot out there, and I can tell that some of my fellow classmates feel like they might have already had too much. The thing is we are getting a lot of information right now and it is an opportunity for incredible growth and experimentation but when it comes done to it, we are the ones planning our lessons and it is up to us to decide what we like and what works for us. My challenge will be using these things in front of a classroom and stepping out of my comfort zone. It will be difficult teaching with a technology that you haven’t really seen modeled very much but I am hoping that we can find a balance between trying new things and doing that which is natural to us.