Connecting

So many blog topics, so little time. There's that four letter word again...time.

Well, short post as I forgot my computer (gasp!) and actually had to write this longhand. Just to revisit my macul08 conference- I had the best time. Still struggling to get through all my notes and create some sort of brilliant, usable, organized method to keep the new ideas in the forefront of my mind and have other items available to share and demonstrate. That is all prep work and is the most difficult for me. The best part for me was coming back and sharing what I learned with people. I have started to regard that collaborative sharing of the knowledge as a ripple effect. And actually, I already see signs of the ripple effect at work. One person went home and played with all the different tools I presented for podcasting and came back the next day so geeked. You can't imagine how my heart was warmed when I went to the copier to retrieve a locked job that I had sent earlier and I saw there was another locked job waiting the in queue. Another sign of getting the knowledge out there and people practicing. Another sign of progress.

I love my job!

MACUL 08 Conference

Well, here I am- I am pumped up for a great two days here at macul08. In the first 1/2 hour I have already learned a ton and have added several new features to my blog! I LOVE having my laptop and wireless access and have been cross-referencing sites the presenters reference. I've checked out Gcast, joined the MACUL space through my Ning account, and even checked in with work and answered some email before the presentation started!

I'm off to a wonderful day-

Heading to MACUL and learning Twitter

I've been playing all last evening and early this morning on Twitter...I'd like to have the ability to Twitter straight from my blog. I have not been able to figure that out yet. I read about Traackr but have not explored that application. Just downloaded Twitbin so I could tweet that I am working on this post. I'll keep playing; right now I'm trying to decide if my tweets are narcissistic but if I get people to respond with proactive and thought-provoking ideas I am going to love the account.

I have to thank Mark Ahlness for getting me motivated to explore twitter...he is now following me so maybe he will read this and know that he has made a positive impact on an educator in Michigan's learning process. Pretty awesome to consider the power of making connections and being connected. To be fair, I should also thank my friend Sarah for introducing me to Mark's blog in the first place.

I am excited to be heading out early Thursday morning to the MACUL conference in Grand Rapids. I finally updated my phone because the old one died (I have a camera for the first time! So lame, I know, but who has time to shop for phones?!?!?! Especially when mine worked.) so I plan to be armed with my laptop and my phone and I'll be tweeting and snapping photos and updating from my blog and learning. It will be great. I have a Flickr account, but still need to figure out how to do a few things on that as well. That will be next!