Blogs! Blogs! Blogs!

Ok, I'll admit it, although I follow quite a lot of sites in my Google Reader (and never seem to have to the time to read everything) only about 20% of them are blogs from fellow educators.  Shameful, I know.  Well, once again, ISTE 2010 has opened my eyes - this time to the plethora of information and amazing insights that I have been missing by following micro-blogs (Twitter) but only giving cursory glances at full blogs.  Time to change (that's what its all about, right?).  I've decided to create a new folder in my Reader for some great bloggers I've had the honor to meet plus others that have surfaced through the #ISTE10 backchannel this past week that have caught my eye.  Since this is where I am going to keep track of my thoughts from here on out, I thought this would be a great place to list some of my older and new-found favs.  Here we go:

• The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom - @web20classroom
• The Nerdy Teacher - @thenerdyteacher
• Free Tech. for Teachers - @rmbyrne
• Quisitivity - @geraldaungst
• The eJulez Perspective - @ejulez
• Upside Down Education - @amandacdykes
• Ed Tech Steve - @edtechsteve
• Nebraska Change Agent - @bethstill
• Philly Teacher - @mbteach
• chadlehman.com - @imcguy
• Dangerously Irrelevant - @mcleod
• weblogg-ed - @willrich45
• 2cents Worth - @dwarlick
• Parentella
• The Active Class

Also worth mentioning are the Diigo ISTE 2010 Group, the ISTE Video Archive & ISTE Hot Links.

NEW: Simplek12 list of blogs

I know there are SO MANY I've missed.......if you know of outstanding blogs out there that are "must-reads" that need to on my list, please leave me a comment below!  I know this will be an ever-changing journey of awesome insights that I'll never be able to keep up with but even a little goes a long way when it comes to sharing ideas.  Nuff' said.

#ISTE10

....and here we go. My first "official" blog - The 2010 ISTE Conference. Why would a conference change my mind about blogging? Was it an awesome breakout session? No. Was it seeing everyone sitting around on their laptops/iPads in the Blogger's Cafe whenever I passed by? Nope, still didn't inspire me. Was it reading all the blog posts about ISTE that have been published and continue to be published? Although I'm loving the reading material, not really....I mean, who cares what I have to say, right? Right? Well, strangely, that now appears to be....wrong. It all started Saturday during the EduBloggerCon when I sent out my first tweet of the day:


"Technology doesn't improve education, it changes it.....TEACHERS improve education #ebc10 #ISTE10"

Now, over 170 Re-tweets later and a couple of features (The #1 Quote of ISTE 2010 & The Best #ISTE10 Tweets where I have 3), I am still receiving feedback from professionals all over! Say what? 140 characters just aren't enough to adequately convey what I was thinking at the time (#1 question) and what context it was done in (#2) SO without further ado, I'll attempt to address the assumptions and inquiries I've received thus far below:

I sent this during a conversation about the misconceptions people have concerning the integration of technologies such as interactive whiteboards into the classroom and just expecting student learning and achievement to automatically improve. If the teacher does not know HOW to use that technology in the best way possible for their students, then it is of little to no use. It’s just a board. Too many times, and for various reasons that are out of our control (no PD position, lack of $$$) new technologies are integrated into a classroom but it's up to the teacher to learn how to use them. Yes, students can help in that process but if the teacher is not able to be trained on best practices, the technologies' full potential is severely handicapped. The whole point of the tweet was that we need to focus on teachers and how they use technology as much as the technology itself and what it can do. What type of technology is not the issue here (I've been informed several times that there are many items that are considered technology that aren't digital in nature), what matters is how it's used.

Hmmm...interesting.....all this writing has raised a new question. Is that how this blogging thing works? Wait, that's not the question I was talking about. I was wondering "Now What?" If teacher-training is an issue (which it always seems to be no matter what your situation) then what are other ways we can deliver the information needed in order to fully utilize technology in the classroom? I think this is the point where I see if I get any comments now? I have several ideas and things I've done, but would love to hear from others out there in the field!

Have at it?

"Why?"

Well it has been a long time since I have blogged (and never for myself) and, in all honesty, I have never seen having a personal one as being all that important or useful to me.  Add to that the added questions of "who in the world cares what I have to say?" and "who the heck has the time to write?"  I fully understand it's use as being extremely beneficial and important in/out of classrooms with students for collaborative learning, alternative feedback, differentiation and higher-order thinking skills but why do it on a personal level? I keep hearing the term Reflection but my mind just doesn't work that way....there are others ways to reflect. I've always seen writing as a time consuming chore and the opposite of enjoyable, however...

As I continue to become more and more involved in my profession, and on a much larger scale than in the past, I've come to the realization that my main "digital footprint" see edtechsteve's blog is pretty hard to find.  I seem to currently have what I refer as "baby steps" spread all throughout Cyberspace: Nings....Twitter....Delicious....Diigo....Skype....Google Wave....Talk....Wikis....LinkedIn.......Second Life...  I'm everywhere and yet nowhere to be found!  This would be reason #1 for me to create a blog site.

Update 07/04/2010 - This was written quite some time ago and as you can see, abandoned. Well, the time has come to pick it up once again - see the post above for reason #2 and what will be my second official blog.....