Blog #2-"I'm Back!"

6 and already a master at navigating on the computer! 

Well, I am back again, and I start with this photo! There is a caption...six and already a master at navigating on the computer. I awoke one morning and saw my oldest, Cailyn, already on the computer. I normally do not let her on my MacBook, but she had already managed to turn it on, get onto her school's website, logged on, scrolled to the Kindergarten page, and was playing a math game. Whew! I just stood there in awe! This is the future.  This is considered normal for her and clearly fun and easy to use! This made me think of what I am doing with taking this online class. After the second session, I was challenged and now seeing Cailyn do all these things so well,  I want to be able to connect with her. I need to learn, I need to understand, apply, make mistakes, learn again, and keep moving forward.

During the second class, I learned about social bookmarking, browsers, and I signed up for a Diigo account. At first, I will admit I thought I had this subject matter down.

PERSONALLY: From my own experience, I have had time to practice saving folders under my bookmark, using apps such as Evernote which can tag favorite sites, videos, pictures, etc. I have enjoyed using those and found how much they can keep me organized since there is so much out there on the world wide web. I felt confident with using different browsers. I have seen how different browsers work on different computers and been able to find benefits in browsers such as Chrome and how it works with my Google features. Friday night rolled around and BOOM! I was in a panic! I started my homework, and I came across new names, technical terms that I had not heard of before, and the frustration set in. Even though, I was becoming frustrated, I took a deep breath, leaned on the support of my friends and my husband, and I got through it. I am learning and having fun exploring.

PROFESSIONALLY: I can see many new things I look forward to using in my classroom. I do see a huge advantage with my new educator account on Diigo. I am hoping that I can prepare some communities, set up groups for my different classes, and get more and more students involved with tagging articles that they have researched and provide feedback to each other. I also feel confident that I can soon be that expert colleagues can lean on when they need ideas to incorporate technology in their classroom based on what I have learned and used in my experiences.

I focus back to the picture of Cailyn. I focus on her excitement as she discovers how technology works and how much fun it can be. It is a simple message that I take with me as I move forward and learn more from this online class. Even though I will still come across many challenges, I lean too on this message heard on one of my favorite sit-coms when the main character is thrown a challenge his way. He will strongly reply without hesitation, "Challenge Accepted!" I shall do so as well with excitement like my daughter, Cailyn!