My experience with learning 2.0

     This has been a seemingly long and frustrating journey at times, but overall is definitely worth it. I considered myself pretty tech-savvy, but this project has taught me that I still have plenty of things to learn. This was a good wake up call for me- technology is growing and changing all the time, and as a life-long learner, I need to be open to the changes and embrace them.
     One of my new favorite discoveries is the Animoto site. As soon as I started working with it, my mind was going a million miles an hour with ideas for its use in my classroom. It is so simple and fun. Another of my favorite tools is LiveBinder. I did get frustrated with this one, but now that I can use it properly, I am a big fan. For some things, like putting all of my ideas for a class project in one place, LiveBinder is a much better option than Pinterest, GoogleDocs, etc.
     The fact that I found these two programs so applicable to my future career was slightly surprising. I really wasn't sure what to expect from this program, but I can say my knowledge has expanded and I am grateful to take that away from this project. I plan to take many of these tools with me to my classroom, especially my favorites, LiveBinder and Animoto. I think this course has reminded to keep an open mind to using more technology in teaching. Further, I plan to keep up with all the new technology coming out for use in education by following the education blogs, education technology blogs, and simply searching for education 2.0 in news articles. I really liked the RSS feed for this purpose- I can just log on and see what's new in all the education blogs, sites, and forums.
     The program was pretty easy to follow. The only issue I had was trying to find others' blogs to follow. The instructions state that they show in the sidebar, but I didn't realize that it takes a while for them to show up after we register. I was worried I had done something wrong and my blog wasn't connecting to those of my classmates.
     I do plan to re-purpose my blog. I really like the idea of a classroom blog. I haven't decided what I want to do exactly, but I have some ideas. I may use it to continue to document all of my work throughout grad school, like a personal portfolio that I can access easily. I've also thought about turning it into a source of information for parents of my students. I'll just write a short blog every day or every week about how the class is doing, what we are studying, and giving some tips and reminders. Finally, I could use it as my personal account of my journey to becoming a teacher. Clearly, I have many different directions in mind as to where to go next, but I think any one that I choose will be very helpful to Mrs. K the teacher one day!