Not as tech savvy as I thought....

I am home from Orlando, FL. where I attended a meaningful conference and engaged in some fascinating learning dealing with differentiating instruction. One of the speakers that I was able to see was Will Richardson (#diii2011). He gave me the ability to view technology in a whole new light in regard to professional learning and teaching our students. He believes that teachers are being left behind as our students are moving toward becoming 21st century learners. I must say that after listening to him, I agree!!! He gave me some food for thought:

1. You should be able to GOOGLE yourself! Google is moving towards becoming our professional resume and therefore, when your name is googled, positive things should be able to be found! (not Cancun pictures from your college spring break!) Essentially you are marketing yourself and creating a brand called "fill in your name."
2. Social bookmarking-I had no idea that you could do this. I was introduced to delicious.com and diigo.com. These two sites allow you to literally bookmark web resources, articles that you may find interesting, etc. Once you've placed them on their site you are able to highlight in the document and add notes. I was fascinated!
3. Twitter is a professional resource! Who knew??? I sure didn't! He walked us through the steps of setting up a twitter account and how to navigate through the site for professional learning information. I was blown away. All these years I thought it was for people keeping up with the social lives of others! That being said...follow me!!!! #tasharachell
4. Evernote.com-Another great resource that I didn't know anything about! User friendly for adults as well as students and allows you an online format to take notes. Will told us that he is 100% paperless! I am no where near that!
5. Google docs-Another thing I had heard of but never explored! You can do so much! You must have a GMail account to be able to access google docs but once you get there you will be just as excited as I am!

There are more resources that Will gave us and explained how they could be used not only in the classroom but also for professional growth for educators. Look him up! Follow him on twitter #willrich45. As I dig further into these resources, I will continue to post. Since seeing him speak I have started a twitter account, constructed this blog, and registered for delicious. I am on information overload but feel like if I don't dive in I will lose everything he taught me! I am excited about the possibility of learning!!!!

If I don't learn anything new today, how can we engage in meaningful conversation tomorrow????