January 15

It feels a little like the first day of school: taking on a new challenge, a new area of study and new colleagues, I couldn’t be more enthusiastic!

I’m currently a first-time mom on maternity leave. I’m definitely enjoying my days at home with my 8-month old daughter but at the same time, looking forward to returning to the classroom and wanting to stay in the educational conversation. (And let’s face it, any adult conversation is great at this point!) My participation in this MOOC will be mostly dependent on my daughter’s moods but I’m looking forward to curling up on the couch learning while she’s curled up napping. What a wonderful way to spend a few wintery weeks!

In my professional life I am a middle-years trained teacher but I’ve worked in every grade level from K-8. I’ve taught everything from core French to kindergarten phys.ed. and I love a challenge! I will be returning to the classroom and my role as vice-principal in September of 2013.

I find that the more I delve into the world of technology the more I realize that I know NOTHING! Just preparing for this post I had to search how to add a calendar to my iphone, reacquaint myself with tumblr, figure out how to subscribe to a list on twitter, explore tweetdeck, figure out what to do with that google+ account I started and never did anything with, and check out about.me only to realize I don’t have anything to use as a cover photo! It’s like technological ADD: I have 10 tabs open in my browser, I start one job only to get sidetracked over and over and I accomplish little or nothing! Whew!

There are many things I’m hoping to learn during this MOOC experience but I’ll begin with the desire to learn how to use these social networking tools more effectively in order to take these tools into the classroom and my school community. I’m excited to explore the worlds of social networking that lay beyond Facebook.