So much to do and so little time. I don't know about the rest of you but the work this week has taken up a lot of time. Now this is not a complaint as such, really it is the lead into how useful the tools and technologies we are learning really are. Working to meet the Monday deadline means that I will have to complete some of my school work this weekend. Well I will be out of town this week end. In the past that may have really stressed my time management skills. I would have had many a long evening this week and probably stayed up into the wee hours on Sunday and Monday as well. I had even planned on not watching Psych and Monk with my family tonight which is the only shows all four of all like to watch. It really wasn't until this afternoon that I realized that while I was in Rhinelander, Lac Du Flambeau, and Wausau this weekend for our open house programs instead of using all the down time that I usually spend being bored or trying to find a good place for chicken wings, I could be accessing and completing all my MEIT work.

That's right I can simply pack up my laptop, with my delicious online bookmarks, my in the Box online storage, my Empressr online presentation tool, and my digital scanned textbook and off I go. Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning I can now spend being productive just as if I were sitting at my desk at home. Not only that but I can probably even use the computer to find a place with wings.

I found the online presentation applications to be fairly sophisticated after looking at the graphic applications we previewed this week. I currently use Power Points on an almost daily basis and so the use of these online presentations was easily understood. I was impressed as I mentioned at how sophisticated many of the sites were. Currently I have unlimited use of Elluminate which is an online synchronous white board web application. There must be a term for what it is that I am unaware of, maybe someone can fill me in on that in the comments area. With Elluminate I can upload a Power point and use it for my presentations. I really have not thought of how I can utilize the online presentation capabilities but I look forward to reading the ideas generated in all of your Blogs.

Joining in the exploration

Ideas, ideas, ideas, that is what I got from reading all my colleagues blogs. Idea sharing, and support from the comments given, very positive and energetic. The process of writing the blog feeds into the this idea generation as well. It forces one to consider what is possible and evaluate what has been tried or in the context of this class learned. To borrow a phrase from Nick, I am excited about the possibilities. It occurs to me that I very much like the idea of discovery learning. (This is not a shot at Louis who has been a great support!) So far I have learned a lot and been taught very little. I have been asked to discover and experiment in order to understand the different technologies we are working with. I have been exploring how they work and generating ideas of possible uses in my classroom. Even more lately I have been thinking how much I like having the opportunity to explore and learn as compared to being "taught" and how this might translate or apply to the experience my high school students have in my online class.

Specifically this week I started using a social bookmarking system; Delicious. I had also decided to use Firefox as a browser, which incidentally runs some of my online work application better. I bounce between my desktop computer and my laptop computer all the time, whether it is so I can sit in my easy chair and grade hundreds of exams while watching the birds at the feeder or I pop into the Greatest Coffee shop, downtown Hartland to work so I avoided the drowsy effects of grading countless assignments submitted during the last week of the semester as I am doing right now. It the past this meant I would have to send all my links back and forth between computers if I wanted to access them. when I go up north for a 3 day weekend and would realize I don't have my favorites set up on my In-laws computer. Well those days are gone. I added my work and class links to Delicious from each of my computers and now no matter what computer I am on I can access them.

As part of my online class I also set up information links for my student for each topic we study. I have folders of links which I pull up each semester to check on their relevance and whether they are active links. Now I can tag them and have them organized on Delicious. In Addition my students have a assignment choice they can do which asks them to complete an internet search and report on helpful websites they have found. In the past I would fill pages and pages full of these links and then go to each and check them out, adding some to favorites. Now if I find them useful I can tag them in Delicious and have them organized by topic. I have already found ways to save time and get more done.

Ideas, ideas, Ideas they just keep on coming..... I look forward to reading about your ideas as we explore this new virtual environment.