Learning Digitally

Last Friday I had the opportunity to attend ACTEM’s 20th MAINEducation conference in Augusta, and while the weather outside could not have been worse, the energy and excitement inside was fantastic. Will Richardson was the keynote speaker and focused attention on the need to prepare our students for a Web 2.0 world.

I was also excited to hear Vicki Davis speak on creating a Flat Classroom. The project was inspired by the book The World is Flat and has connected her high school students with classrooms in six countries. In the afternoon I joined Vicki again on the power of and need for teachers to be blogging. Her advice was to get started and to bring the collective power of our voices to the Internet; so here is my first blog entry.

Finding a place to blog was easy. Edublogs.org was my choice, but there is also David Warlick’s Class Blogmeister and Blogger, part of the Google tools. What to call my blog was more difficult; Vicki’s advice was to make sure the title was catchy but placed the focus on education. So what do you think of the title?

What’s tougher than thinking of a title for a blog? Choosing what to write! It was true serendipity that while at the conference I picked up a copy of Will Richardson’s book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Webtools for the Classroom and began reading as soon as I got home. His first chapter advises teachers equip themselves with seven essential web tools, one of which is the blog. So I present you with my blog; way to communicate, collaborate, and to connect with students, parents, peers, and the world wide web.

What are the other tools? One way to find out is to pick up a copy the book, which I strongly recommend, but another way is to check out my blog. I will be putting together my own toolbox and I will let you know where to find the tools and connect you to some samples to check out.