In exactly three weeks I will experience my fifth “first day” of school. Usually I spend my summers taking grad classes and working on my house. By the middle of June I am usually on a first name basis with the employees at Home Depot, but this year was different. No major renovations this summer!

Back in the spring we doubled the size of our teaching staff so there are now four of us! We are launching a virtual school in the fall that, as of today, has an official name. The Nebraska Educational Virtual Academy will offer classes in math, science, social studies, and English. We have collectively put in well over 1000 hours learning Moodle and developing our classes. We are almost ready for school to begin.

This year feels different than past years. I am chomping at the bit to get back in the classroom, but that is only half of my job. I am now teaching two online classes and I am so excited to see how they go over. I have invested so much of myself in creating the classes. I have listened to suggestions from my PLC and I have implemented many of them. The biggest change my students will notice is that are no more traditional tests! I have decided to allow my students create projects based on the Nebraska Social Studies standards. Their projects will become part of a class wiki and eventually part of an electronic portfolio (a blog).

To say that I have gotten caught up in Web 2.0 would be an understatement. I have devoted countless hours to learning how to create wikis and manage my blog. A couple people from my PLC have graciously given me hours of their time to test out new tools and to teach me other important skills. I have focused so much on creating courses, that at times, I feel like I have lost sight of the most important aspect of my job—-my students!

Now that I am wrapping up the last few lessons I can once again focus on “my kids.” I ran into two students earlier this evening and it reminded me of how much I miss them. Many teachers dread going back to school in the fall, but I cannot wait! My favorite line from the Rookie is when Jimmy Morris is talking to Brooks in the locker room and he says “Guess what we get to do today? We get to go play baseball!” That is how I feel about teaching. It is something I look forward to everyday. If you have actually made it to the end of this post then I think it is safe to say you do, too.

Please share your most memorable “first day” experience with me. I’m also interested in knowing what is on your mind as we get closer to the start of school. What are you anticipating the most? What are you not looking forward to dealing with?

I was first introduced to the term PLC a couple of years ago. One of my colleagues set up PLC’s for the teachers in our area to use to network with each other, but the idea just did not take off. Once in a while after a training session there is a flurry of activity, but then the excitement wears off and people go back to what is familiar and comfortable.

Maybe there is just something wrong with me, but I do not always like being in familiar and comfortable settings. I don’t like routines because they are boring and I am afraid that if I get into a routine then I will quit learning. We live in and age where information is growing exponentially. If we stop learning, even for just a second, we will get behind the curve and we will not be able to catch up no matter how hard we try.

That is where PLC’s come in. Back in the spring I joined the NECC 2008 Ning. I spent hours reading profiles trying to find people to connect with. I even placed my information on the EduBloggerCon wiki not realizing it was for a separate event! I contacted 7 or 8 people who I thought I has something in common with. That was the start of my PLC. My mentor, Cory Plough, has helped me so much over the last two months. If it was not for him I would have not moved as quickly as I have. He introduced me to Twitter and encouraged me to blog.  Both activities have helped me branch out and grow professionally. Over the last two months I have found myself immersed in a world that I was not even aware existed.

I have had a hard time selling the idea of blogging and Twitter to my coworkers. I was skeptical at first as well, but over the last month I have seen the value of what I can learn there. I was discussing Twitter with a principal yesterday and he asked me my opinion about the educational value of this application. I follow people who I perceive as being on the cutting edge of education. Scott Floyd, Steve Hargadon, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Darren Draper, Wesley Freyer, Jeff Utecht, Bud Hunt, Alan November, David Warlick and Scott McLeod. I also follow regular educators like myself who are passionate about bringing change to the world of education. Some of the educators I follow are Nancy Pratt, Michelle Baldwin,  Josh Allen, Craig Hicks, Dan McDowell, and of course my mentor, Cory Plough. I also follow a man named Rich White, but I have no idea why. His posts are way over my head and I cannot relate to them on any level, but I find him facsinating so I will continue to follow him. What I learn for these individuals is invaluable. Over the last week my PLC has grown to include people from Pakistan, the UK, and Australia. It is reassuring to know that I am always just a click away from being able to connect with someone in my PLC.

The point I am trying to make is that teachers who are not part of a PLC are missing out on a tremendous experience. I taught for four entire years and without being connected to anyone! I taught in this little bubble and did not venture out of it very often. It was not that I wanted to keep to myself, I just did not have anyone to share ideas with. There were times I felt very lonely. I never met any teachers that I had much in common with until recently. The camaraderie I have experienced over the last two months has been amazing. Thank you so much to those of you who have helped me get started on fulfilling my dream of becoming a change agent. I hope someday soon I can “pay it forward.”

Michelle Martin recently blogged about this as well in her post called “Some Observations on Getting Value From a  Social Network.“

In February of 2008 I attended a workshop on Web 2.0 tools. Howie DiBlasi was the presenter. He talked about how there are not too many people who are willing to take the risk to make big changes. In fact, he said that only about 1 in 10 people are willing to look for new ways to do things. It is that 10% that are the change agents; the people who will revolutionize education. Cory Plough recently wrote about something similar to this in a blog post called “Can You Influence Change?” At the end of his post he asks his audience what they are doing to influence their environments.

After sitting though Dr. DiBlasi’s presentation it was evident that teachers in my region (western Nebraska) are very far behind where they need to be. Only a handful of people out of the 150 or so even knew what podcasts, wikis, and blogs were. In fact, most of the terms associated with Web 2.0 were all foreign to the vast majority of the audience. At that time I was still fairly new to Web 2.0, but I had at least experimented with podcasting and wikis.

My passion for Web 2.0 was ignited that day. I decided back in February that I was going to become a change agent. I was determined to learn as much as I could and share that knowledge with as many people as possible. Until recently, my only audience was my students. Then we hired three new teachers and I saw a great opportunity to mold them into change agents. I saw my chance to be a leader.

I have learned a hard lesson over the last few weeks. It takes a long time to change the mindset of a traditional classroom teacher. Traditional F2F teachers are comfortable with how they are doing things and they are reluctant to change. Unless they are the “one” out of the one in ten who is truly innovative and looking for change then I am fighting a losing battle. I am happy report that I have seen signs that my colleagues are at least willing to learn.

Over the last couple of weeks I have read so many blog posts that deal directly with how to get teachers to change the status quo and fully embrace technology. I would love to see a paradigm shift in our schools, but the realist in me does not see this change happening for many years. Michelle Baldwin wrote a post the other day about the need to act now to help prepare our students for the world of work. True change is going to have to be mandated at some level if the majority of teachers are ever going to learn to do anything beyond check their email. (Which some still cannot even figure out!!)

Most teachers who are not on board with technology see it as an extra duty. Just one more thing to do! I have seen some teachers who are even proud of the fact they are computer illiterate. They wear the label like a badge of honor! I am not even sure if it is possible for those teachers to cross the digital divide.

So getting back to the ten percent of us who are dedicated to making the changes happen. How are we going to do it? Where do we begin? How do we motivate our colleagues without pushing them over the edge? How are we going to turn our thoughts into actions? I have some ideas, but I am a long way away from having any answers.

Here are what other people are saying about this topic.

• Robin Martin If All the World Could See
• Darren Draper The Most Effective Teachers Have More to Learn
• Jeff Utecht Another Sputnik
• Will Richardson Teachers As Learners Part 27 (from Aug.2006)
• Michelle Baldwin A Call to Act Now
• Cory Plough Meliorate

Since returning from NECC I have become addicted to reading blogs. I came across a post that Darren Draper wrote about a year ago called Why Every Teacher Should Blog. I could not have come across this post at a better time! I came back from NECC feeling like I could change the world. What I experienced at the conference took me by complete surprise. I went to the conference alone, but came back feeling like I was connected to people from around the world. I feel pretty isolated from the rest of the world in western Nebraska, but blogging has changed all of that. I have found that blogging allows me to communicate my thoughts and feelings to the rest of the world. I also believe blogging would open up channels of communication inside of my school that seem to be turned off at the moment. Blogs give colleagues a chance to catch up with each other when they cannot do it in person. Maintaining a blog does take a little bit of work, but isn’t it worth it? It you have ever worked in a school where communication was a problem then you already know the answer to that question.

There is a group in the Ning dedicated to keeping conversations going post-conference. I posted a questions that pertains to blogging earlier today.

I am facing an almost certain backlash from my coworkers. We are busy preparing our online classes so they are ready to launch in the fall. Since I got back from NECC I have been chomping at the bit to share some of what I learned. I picked the two things that I felt were the most important tools to pass along. I will try to find teaching moments throughout the year to share more of what I learned.

The above link is to a presentation I created using GoogleDocs. It is my first attempt at using anything in GoogleDocs so be easy on me if you do a critique! The presentation focuses on the importance of Ning’s and Diigo.