I dedicate this post to my co-workers and friends at Westwood Schools. Although lately I've been snagging lunch in my room a lot due to a heavy workload, I admire them. I respect them. I believe they are the greatest group of teachers in the world at the greatest school in the world! I am honored to be among them.
This is a post about where to get started with all of this overwhelming Web 2.0 "stuff" and is designed to be a "menu." Select the things that interest you and leave the things that don't. And remember, you cannot possibly take it all in.
1) Peruse best practices in your subject area. I've been going through my del.icio.us links and working to categorize it by teacher or profession. I will be cataloging and going through them more in the future, but take a look at the websites that you can use or what other teachers are doing. Keep a notebook handy to jot down your ideas:
Then, go to my bookmarks and add me to your network -- you can now share bookmarks with me and follow mine by going to delicious and clicking on "your network." This will show you all of the bookmarks of those you've added to your network.
Add to your network some other great places with great links - the Wow2 show (where I webcast) and the edtechtalk channel are two of my favorite places for links.
3. Listen to an audio show or two while you're grading papers.
Just click on these links and click the play button. These will help you see what other educators are doing. Here are some specific shows that I have favorited, pick one that interests you:
Blogging and understanding the emerging network of educators -- This show from EdTechBrainstorm literally had educators from multiple continents, a preservice group of teachers from Western Australia, a group of presenters in Thailand and some of the best blogging educators in the world like Cathy Evanoff, Cheryl Oakes, and Jo McLeay talking about blogging. If you want to get excited and SEE why you need to get connected, this is it!
It is important to hear voices because you will see that there are people out there like you who are scared but are jumping in and getting started too!
4) Take time to write down 3 goals of things you want to learn more about in the next 7 days! I call this my "big three" and I always take away a "big three" from all presentations or events that I attend. Here are some suggestions.
Thanks for the beginner info! I really appreciate it. I've done the social bookmarking before, but the audio stuff and rss info is golden. Looking forward to the beginner series.
Perhaps you or your fellow teachers might find my subject-based RSS feeds helpful (when they are more comfortable with RSS). I hope that you don't mind that I used your del.icio.us account as a part of the aggregated feed...
ITunesPodcast
Digg/coolcatteacher
Flickr/coolcatteacher
Facebook/Cool Cat Teacher
Friendster/Cool Cat Teacher
Linkedin/coolcatteacher
Twitter/coolcatteacher
YouTube/coolcatteacher
Del.icio.us/brightideasguru
Wikipedia/brightideasguru
coComment/coolcatteacher
Upcoming/Cool Cat Teacher
Technorati/brightideasguru
Blog/Cool Cat Teacher
Blippr/coolcatteacher
to learn more. (This was one way I got started.)
Thanks for the beginner info! I really appreciate it. I've done the social bookmarking before, but the audio stuff and rss info is golden. Looking forward to the beginner series.