This year has been life-changing for me. I have entered the technology world and there is no turning back. On September 8th I sat in the Reed Theater at Fredericksburg Academy and started a journey that would change how I look at the world, how I teach and how I learn.

I became part of an International PLP in which I get to interact with other educators all over the world. We participate on a ning site with educators from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I remember sitting in that first f2f meeting and thinking, “Huh?” It was overwhelming, especially because I was only two weeks into school and hadn’t gotten my “school legs” yet. But I quickly found that the International PLP was going to give me just what I needed, a learning network to make myself a better learner and teacher.

The best part of the network for me was that they gave me permission to NOT use the tools I am learning in the classroom yet. My assignment was to simply use the tools in my own learning as an educator and go from there. That was refreshing for me and proved to be just the advice I needed.

Since September I have found a way to have an awesome learning network of people all over the world. I have tweeted twittered posted 367 tweets on twitter, posted numerous responses on our PLP ning, joined a Foreign Language Ning, called into a radio show on the CBC about edtech, tagged away on delicious, joined a K-12 online conference Elluminate session, watched numerous conferences online that happened in Canada and elsewhere, took a photo a day for a month on flickr and found a network of people who would help me learn as an educator.

I can’t recall a time when I have learned so much in such a short period of time, and yet it just opened up a world of things yet to learn. Of course, I have changed not only how I learn, but also have changed many things I do in the classroom with my students. I hope to share in this blog, my thoughts, ideas, trials and tribulations, successes and ”learning experiences”.

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Comment by David Vita on December 2, 2008 at 4:32pm
Carey,

What an inspiring post. I don't know you at all, but your post has a "tone" of exhilaration. The whole digital domain opportunity, when I think about it, is quite amazing. I have just recently completed my capstone project for a graduate degree in e-learning technology and design. While researching trends and capabilities in Web 2.0, I was (in a good way) overwhelmed. My sponsor for my project was a professor from Calcutta. It is fascinating to me that we could work together from that distance - because he is a digital learning design professor and consultant, he has really broadened my perspective.

Thanks for writing about your journey.

David
Comment by Carey Pohanka on December 2, 2008 at 4:37pm
David,

Thanks for the great feedback. I am afraid I am gushing too much happiness, but I can't help it! I am glad that you got that experience getting your grad degree. Sounds fascinating. It is amazing to me how now my "classroom" has no walls whatsoever. I am constantly interacting with educators all over the world. Do you use twitter? That has been a great resource for me.

Carey

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