ejourneys

I am just so excited that I am going to write up my ejourneys of today, immediately. Those who have used these emerging technologies will be highly amused, I am sure, but for those who may still venture down this path,you  may be interested in my jottings. In years to come, I am sure that I  will be highly amused about this post, when I reflect back on my naivety. However, I shall start with some of my personal attributes as I see them and then tell you my journey of today.

Personal characteristics

• love technology
• a sociable person
• good sense of humour
• rather shy when placed with people I really admire
• prefer to chat using text to talk with people I am uncertain of.
• not a good public speaker and would rather ‘do’ than ‘lecture’ in the classroom.

Checked out a blog yesterday and it had a neat widget that showed the blogger’s personal profile, so I decided to add it to this blog. See it in the lower rhs. It was then I realised how few public spaces I use for communication.

At least I had a twitter user name to add to this widget. It was only last week, that I started to use www.twitter.com seriously. Reading about its potential in a discussion in www.classroom20.com, I decided to actively create a network. In the first couple of days, I only had a few people who followed me but I was following some really interesting educators. This did not allow for much interaction or collaboration, as I kept tweeting to people that did not even know I existed. With the help of some really caring tweeters, I was introduced to a wider network where I am establishing  good social and educational contacts.

Searching through other people’s followers, I found an icon for edtechtalk, so decided to follow that (completely oblivious to its meaning) Periodically tweets come through to say there is an edtechtalk show going on. Plucking up my courage I downloaded the software and entered the room a couple of times when sessions were in progress. People were kind, chatted away and I tried to listen to the audio that was going on, but got distracted with all the chat. Twitter names appeared amongst the participants.  I think the first time I just watched the chat and had no idea that there was audio attached.

Second time in, I realised audio was attached so I listened to a great session and yesterday, I came in late and missed most of the show. This brings me to today!In I went to the elementary school talk not knowing what to expect but feeling more confident than earlier sessions. People welcomed me by text and I listened to a really good show on incorporating RSS into the classroom, giving students the opportunity to use RSS. I had not even thought of that despite the fact that I use google reader for my own use.

Trying to keep up with the chat, listen to the audio and my brain ticking away fast thinking of possibilities,  Alice asked for me for my  skype contact. Not really thinking, because I would never have done it otherwise, I messaged it back. Wondering what it meant, I logged off my personal skype name and entered the one that I used for school purposes.

Yipes……….I had entered into a  conference chat with names of people I had followed on classrom2.0 and twitter!!! Some were from California and New York. Plus being such a newbie I was still on another session in the original site which meant I was hearing two sessions at once. Starting to panic, I was tempted to take off the skype one and just ‘run away’. What if the video feature was on? I was in my old farm clothes, wearing some old glasses because I could not find my normal ones and here I was in front of the teachers from the United States. (Still dont know if video was there, because I knew I was not going to switch on that option!!!)

In a mad state, I switched off the other talk show and tuned into skype. Next minute I was asked a question. Pretending I did not hear it, I was asked again.  The participants were so kind, interested in what we do and then shared their ideas on rss in the classroom and finding a way to use google docs in my classes despite the fact, it could be blocked at school. Soon, I relaxed and really enjoyed that session. Too soon it was finished but I have a lot of ’food for thought’ and again valuable contacts who will help me to use these web 2.0 tools.