Beginning a long journey.......

The last three weeks have been an awakening for me. I just agreed to participate in writing a new grant for my school without realizing I was stepping into a whole new world. My use of technology thus far in the classroom has been challenging and fun but was confined to things my students did for me on the computer emphasizing reading, writing, researching, documenting, and critical thinking skills. All are valuable skills and abilities and we have produced, over a five year period, and are still producing incredibly wondeful technology-connected projects. My favorites have been historically related comic books and digital memory books based on a character in a work of historical literature. At first we only had a few computers in the classroom but the last two years have seen the introduction of individual laptop computers.

But now, I have read Thomas L. Friedman's book, The World is Flat, and am trying to consume and digest minutely Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts. I have been introduced to the world of the Read/Write web and my life has been changed dramatically. I see a new potential for the internet in the learning process and want to begin using all the new possibilities. But, how to master them all rather quickly is the problem. Luckily, I will be attending the NECC conference in Atlanta, GA this summer and I have already carefully chosen my presentations to attend. I have also been reading voraciously blogs of other educators and just seeing what some of them are doing with their students is amazing. I only hope I can get to that place some day. In the meantime I am setting up this blogging site to begin the blogging process myself so I can model to my students. I have also started learning about wikis, RSS, furl, and many other things that three weeks ago I did not know existed. At least I had heard of blogging but had no idea of its educational opportunities.

So, now as this semester winds down, I am trying to absorb as much as I can before I actually have to begin to think of what I want to do with this new grant writing opportunity and then actually have to write something I have never done before. I have always heard the old Chinese saying that the longest journey begins with but a single step. I have just taken that step. I only hope I enjoy the journey along the way.