Herr Moore’s Blog

This week we have been learning a great deal about developing a “professional learning network”. What a wonderful idea! Using “Delicious” I can easily find and save interesting websites and share them with my peers (provided my peers also use “Delicious”). We then went on learn more about “Skype”, so that we can video conference with collegues (provided they also use “Skype” and are in the same time zone). “Ustream” might be a great way of broadcasting lessons so kids that are home sick can view lessons (I know I would look forward to that if I were a kid home sick).

While all these tools are extremely useful and interesting, I am a little skeptical. Two main problems that I anticipate:1) These tools are so new (or one of so many) that it will prove difficult to find peers using compatible tools 2) I will be too nervous/uncertain to actually use them in class.  The promise of technology is impressive, but technology is not yet universal. I still have kids in 8th grade that complain that they don’t know how to save  a document to a disk (much less a CD, flash drive, H drive, or forward in an email).

I know I need to integrate technology into my lessons and that I am finding excuses not to. I am engaging in one of mankind’s greatest gifts: rationalization. I guess I am just scared of geting caught in this virtual net…