LightintheWoods

As a requirement of the class that I am taking from Dean, my thoughts this past two weeks have been on collaboration. This is a reflection on my collaboration as it happened through this time frame.

Right off the bat Erin Dawson and I were sharing like minded direction during our elluminate session. We both wanted to create a wiki project on inclusion of technology in K-8 Science. Seemed like a great idea, but then it snowballed and evolved into elementarytech. This wiki demonstrates a broad spectrum of projects that infuse technology. We used mindmeister to brainstorm ideas and communicated mostly through email. I have heard the the quote from Alec Couros, “10 miles wide, 2 inches deep” and definitely applies to this wiki, we lacked direction. But I am still attached to it, I feel it has good potential and I intend to collect future lessons, links, units in this space. If anyone is interested, please come share with us. This is space that is ever growing.
Nicole Hofer created the Digital Citizen Ning group, I was familiar with Ning from my involvement with the digitalintern group and find it to be a neat platform to share and build community. I contributed a couple videos, but have intent to blog and develop this further. At the very least it is a good example of networking. I may use Ning to connect my students during this internship.

The neat part about the project with Dean was the opportunity to correspond with Jeff Utecht’s Class. Micheal, David and Matt created a great wetpaint wiki Web 2.0 for Newbies. I hopped on and began a Twitter in the Classroom page.

With application to the classroom floating in my mind I was lucky Damien Bariexca linked me to his class wiki. His reflection of his wiki experience is just what is needed for new teachers, like me.

But that is just a taste of the collaboration, it is happening instantaneously. Through everything, twitter and del.icio.us come to mind, but also through comments, reflections and discussion. The network is a grand thing.

Yesterday was a good day, I am no longer writing for my personal audience but for stranger’s and new friends. Recognition happened twice yesterday.

First, it was awesome to be introduced on the stuff nobody told us (a project by Christian Long and Damien Bariexca) blog yesterday. Though stuff nobody told us is still in it’s infancy, it has very relevant posts for new teachers or those that need a refresher. Their blog is looking for new teachers in their first 1-3 years to comment and encourage further development and dialog. So check it out.

Then later in the day, Clarence Fisher, an established blogger and all star teacher whom I have been following and idolizing, referenced me in his post on twitter in the classroom. That floored me,I was grinning ear to ear all night.

This feels like a huge accomplishment. All of a sudden, my writing and thoughts are being appreciated by many. My network is growing. I feel the sense of pride and ownership that my students will feel when their work is published and recognized.

Thanks everyone, I know this will happen more in the future and I won’t write about each instance, but right now I am just an amateur in a big world and this was extremely meaningful to me.