If you have been following the Newbie Project this year, you are probably aware that I have mentioned we were not going kick off the official request for donations until after the first of the year. However, several people have inquired about donating early so we decided to go ahead and post the spreadsheet now. You will notice that there is NOT a place to list the amount that you have donated. Jason and I struggled with this decision. While we want people to be recognized for their contributions, we felt that it would be best to keep the dollar amount private. The goal for the Newbie Project was increased to $1600 which is slightly more than it was last year. This will offset the 6% PayPal fee taken from each contribution. Donations will be accepted until the goal is met.

Please click here to access the spreadsheet.

I received an email from Jen Wagner yesterday.  Jen has been part of my PLN for some time now. After reading my post on Ways to Support the ISTE Newbie Project Jen told me that she wanted to donate 10% of the earnings of her new book, Guessthewordle, to this project. I would like to encourage you to look into purchasing this book which. Doing so will allow you to support two members of your PLN at the same time. Guessthewordle can also be downloaded onto your iPod! At $5, it is a superb deal! If you are new to Wordle then check out their website.

Thanks again Jen for your generosity. You are helping prove once again that we really are all in this together.

This post is also on Wes Fryer’s blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity. If you are inclined to comment, please post on his site so we can have the conversation in one place.

I have had a post brewing in my head for a very long time and I think this is the perfect forum in which to bring this issue to light. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss a problem that so many of us have, but are unwilling to acknowledge. The issue I am referring to is finding a balance between the various aspects of our lives. More specifically, I am an going to discuss the amount of time we spend online versus time we spend with our families.

I have two great loves in my life: my family and my career. I am passionate about both of them, but lately it seems like work has overshadowed my family. If I am being honest I would have to say that for the better part of the last year my family has taken a backseat to my career. I teach and develop online classes. Most of this is done at home on my own time due to the constant interruptions at school which occur even during my prep time.

I also have developed an amazing PLN that I love interacting with, but each minute I spend with them is a minute that I could (and should) be spending with my family. My family does not quite fully comprehend that I learn so much on Twitter. The other thing that they do not understand is that some of the friendships I have made on Twitter are very meaningful.

My husband made the awful mistake of giving in to my request and bought me a BlackBerry for Valentine’s Day this last year. I am now connected to all of my email accounts, Google chat, and Twitter around the clock. While I think this is great my family is not as thrilled. You see, I have not yet mastered the art of unplugging and taking a tech break. I enjoy the ability to connect to my network at any time from any place. My family is not impressed that I make myself so easily accessible to the world.

Last week I walked away for a few hours. I actually powered down my laptop and cell phone and I snuggled up with my husband in our favorite over-sized to watch a movie. When I had trouble remember the last time we did that I realized that I have been plugged in for way too long! It finally occurred to me that I need to find some balance. While I love working and I am not in danger of burning out; I am missing out on some very important things in my life. I am just not sure how an online teacher spend less time online, but I will figure it out.

Twitter, blogs and emails can wait, but my family can’t. I still have a lot of work to do online this summer, but I am going to turn off Twitter and I am going to purposefully neglect my reader. While I am online I need to focus on the task at hand. I need to learn to become more efficient when I work. I get tend to get sidetracked very easily! I am not quite sure how I will do this, but I need to find a balance.

I know other people have faced the same issues. How have you managed to strike a balance between work and family time? What are some of the suggestions you have for finding an adequate amount of time for each?

The first time I heard of Leadership Day was last year. I had only just started blogging and felt like there was not much I could contribute. When I saw Scott McLeod’s post on it this year I felt like I might have something to add to the conversation. I spent hours thinking of something brilliant to say, but there were no flashes of inspiration. Then it hit me! Administrators need to know more about the benefits of social networking and how it can be used to help their teachers stay on top of the latest developments and trends in education.

I started developing my personal learning network (PLN) in April 2008. I joined  the NECC Ning and immediately started making connections with people who were attending the National Educational Educating Computing Conference in San Antonio. I also joined Twitter and that is when I really saw my PLN grow. It was not long before I was making true connections with people around the world.  There are a few people in my PLN that I work so closely with that I feel like we are coworkers.

In April I decided to test the power of my favorite social networking site, Twitter. I wanted to see if it was possible for the few hundred people in my network to work together to do something good for someone. I decided to ask for donations to help send a teacher to NECC. I asked Richard Byrne to be to the “newbie” and he gladly agreed. Within two weeks we met the $1500 goal. My plan had worked!

Stop and think for a minute about the implications that this has on learning.  I am a teacher in rural western Nebraska who was able to make a difference because of my personal learning network. I was able to help send a teacher from Maine to a technology conference in Washington DC.  People who knock social networking need to hear this story.

Can you imagine a student at your school harnessing the power of Twitter to change the world? I would like to ask you to start looking into the positive aspect of social networking. Teachers and students who are networked have so many more learning opportunities each day. No less than 99% of my professional learning takes place on Twitter. Before you totally write off what social networking can do in your schools for your teachers and students, please take some time to explore what it means to those of us who rely on it every day.

In case you haven’t noticed, the ISTE10 Newbie Project is very different than it was last year. Many of you were familiar with Richard Byrne’s blog FreeTech4Teachers so you already had a connection to him. So many people have inquired about what they can do to help Jason Schrage get off to a good start this year. While we monetary donations are  essential to the success of the project, there are many other ways you can support him throughout the year. Besides, I want to give you a chance to get to know Jason before asking for contributions.

1. Subscribe to his blog and leave comments. Remember that he is a brand new blogger. All to often we read blogs, but we don’t take the time to comment. The best way to encourage a new blogger to keep blogging is to leave comments and encourage them to keep at it. (Don’t expect too many updates until September.)

2. Follow him and interact with him on Twitter.

3. Include him in your #FollowFriday and #TeacherTuesday updates.

4. Use his blog as a teaching tool this school year. The purpose of the Newbie project this year is to give teachers a good role model to follow.

5.  Make a small monetary donation. The official fund raising will not begin until later in the year, but you can make a donation through PayPal at anytime. There is a button on both of our blogs where you can do that. (Look for the PayPal button on both of our blogs early next week)

6. Offer him advice and suggestions for improvement. He genuinely want to receive constructive criticism.

7. Add the official Newbie Supporter badge to your blog. (Look for it soon.)

8. Tell everyone you know about this project. It is a unique opportunity to follow an amazing educator who is about to embark on an amazing journey.

9. If you are fortunate enough to make it to ISTE10, make it a point to seek out Jason in Denver. My guess is he will probably frequent the Bloggers’ Cafe’. Afterall, he will be a seasoned veteran blogger by then!

These are just a few of the ideas I have for what you can do to help support Jason. Am I missing anything? Please share your ideas.