Peck, Peck .... Look Around

I'll never forget the time I watched a baby chick hatch from an egg. It took quite a while for it to peck through its shell and emerge into a new world. It was quite an effort. I wanted to help it somehow, but I knew that anything I did would only cause harm. I had to just watch. It was a miracle, really.

Can you imagine the perceptions of that chick? It had only known the inside of a shell, and now it was breaking that shell apart and trying to escape it. It was exhausted by the time it finished, but it soon gained new energy and began to explore its new environment.

That's how I feel right now. I've known educational technology for a fairly long time. I'm no luddite. I introduced my sixth graders to personal computers way back in the stone age of 1983. My children grew up around computers, and I've always been one of the people leading the way. Until recently. About three months ago I became aware of this thing called "Web2.0." In those three months I've been doing a lot of learning and discovering. I've been looking around, trying to figure out what's here, why it's important, and how I might use it in my teaching. Now its time to make an entry. By enrolling in Classroom 2.0 I'm hoping that I can actually participate in this new thing.

Cheep cheep. I wonder what this will mean to me and to my students?

JS