Julie

Julie:
===Julie - I am impressed with your commitment to blogging. I anticipate reading it each day now. I hope you will continue the blog after the "structure" of this class is gone. You are a talented educator with an important voice to share. It looks like your PLN is growing daily because of your blog. Well done! ===

**__4/5/11: __**
====Actually it is spring break… As I work on my final project, I can’t tell you how much this class has meant. It got me back into blogging and I have realized how important a PLN is. I have “met” so many great educators on twitter and I have taken part in numerous twitter chats. I have taken something away from each chat and now it is up to me to bring it into my own school. Creating my PLN has shown me that I can be a leader in education and it helped re-energize my passion for learning/teaching. It has also helped me realize my own goals for my career and had me think about the action steps to obtain those goals. ====

__**3/29/11:**__
This past week we were supposed to be looking into using social bookmarking tools and social networks. I must admit that I do not use diigo as much as I should be. I see the benefits to it, I just haven't made it part of my routine. I have also dabbled on using professional nings or wikis. I am not a member of any, but I have visited to see what is there. I have just been diving into twitter and the power that it holds for professional development. I don't want to overwhelm myself too fast. I know I may look really tech savy, but I am learning just like the next person. I am just not afraid to dive in.

__**3/22/11:**__
Technically it is 3/27/11... I first want to say that this class inspired me to begin blogging again. I have wanted to have a professional blog for a long time and I have tried twice keeping up with it and have failed twice. I started thinking what I would tell a student in this situation and I realized that I couldn't give up. I realized that I could do it after the week when Amy challenged us to tweet once a day. I thought I wouldn't have anything to say and who would want to listen to me? But I took that challenge and I realized that I am a networked teacher. I was amazed to see responses to my questions from all over the U.S. These people don't have any idea who I am, but they are willing to help me. I really enjoy collaborating and my eyes started to open to they idea that I am in a global community through technology. Two weeks ago I started thinking that I would like to have a leadership role in my building and this past week I realized that I could be an educational leader in the U.S. or maybe even further.

I wanted to start writing on my blog, but I didn't know how to start. I found these "Kick Start your blog in 30 Days" lists and I thought it would be another challenge for me. The only think was that I think my audience would be mostly educators and I didn't know if they wanted to know my favorite food (Day 5 post from the list). So I decided to write my own reflection questions that would all relate to teaching. Then I decided that I wanted these posts to be videos because it is like an introduction to who I am and I wanted to be as personal as I could get. I am so excited and I can't believe that I received 98 hits to my blog in the 24 hours after my first post to my 30 Day Challenge.

__**3/15/11:**__ ====Since I had already set up a Tweet Deck on my computer and my iphone, I spent today helping others and looking for good resources about standards based learning on twitter. I have found the hastag #sbar that deals with standard based assessing and I also like #sschat which is about social studies. Tweet Deck is a good way to organize the topics in twitter and it helps you join a conversation. Right now I am more of a stalker on Twitter, but this week I will commit to posting something new each day (or at least I will try my hardest).====

__**3/8/11:**__
====I am looking forward to getting connected with other educators. I really feel like collaboration is great and I would like to do more of it. Today we looked at twitter and I already had a twitter account. I was completely into my twitter account before, but when life got busy (which it always does) I stopped looking at it. I am excited to get back into it again.====