One More Tweet Along the World I Go…

What a week! Feels like I have learnt so much, viewed so much, ‘played’ so much… After watching a short Robin Sharma video, I felt quite positive that I AM stretching myself. Professionally at least.

So… what happened this week?

1. I continued to explore my social media dashboard! (I didn’t even know what that meant a few weeks ago!) I check TweetDeck daily and I now feel comfortable using it. I have Tweeted, ReTweeted and have a ‘developing’ understanding of #hashtags. I am Following, Followed and am now converted… I was initially dubious about Twitter and saw it as nothing more than a place to gossip or tell people what you cooked for dinner (like Facebook). But no more!!! I am AMAZED by the amount of resources and knowledge out there and accessible to me. I know it is going to be an invaluable tool to me as an educator and as a learner.

2. I lurve Feedly! A fabulous and clear and easy-to-use news reader that puts all the blogs/sites I am following onto one page. Awesome.

3. On Monday I joined a PLC (Professional Learning Community) at school that is dedicated to technology in the classroom. Specifically it is called the “iPad Collaborative Research” group. Most of the teachers in the group are Grade 1 homeroom teachers as they are trialling iPads in their classrooms. After seeing some amazing movies online of kindergarten students using iPads (like this one) I was inspired!

4. On Tuesday I borrowed an iPad from the school library and took it home.  I have it for a month. I started to research music apps and decided to focus my research on finding a music app that I can use on a composition task with Prep students (5 – 6 year olds). As an aside: I now know it is only a matter of time before I buy my own iPad… it is AMAZING.

5. Also on Tuesday I joined the Diigo community (a shared resource for the PLC)!

6. Also on Tuesday (a big day!) I received an email from the LTT (Learning and Teaching Technologies department) to say I have some more training – Promethean ActivInspire Level 1. As preparation for this I needed to join a Moodle! DONE! More learning here I come…

7. Today (Wednesday) I downloaded a heap of apps that looked like they might be right for what I wanted and started ‘playing’ with them. I say ‘playing’ because really that is my preferred way of learning. I can ‘play’ for hours and hours, figuring out how something works… usually on my laptop, but now I have a new toy…

8. Also today (just now, in fact!) I seem to have discovered that one of the apps seems to do EXACTLY what I was looking for!!!! Surely I cannot be that lucky?!?!  I’m going to try it again tomorrow and then figure out HOW I am going to use it in the classroom. I have a few ideas… later!

PHEW! How much more can my brain take? I have no idea, but I am S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G it for sure and it feels FABULOUS.