So, if you don’t have these two ladies in your social or professional network it is time!

Angela has worked with our district many times over the past two years.  She has worked with our English Department on web 2.0 tools.  She has taught several different courses at our Teacher Center.  She has worked with me personally on how to create reports using our Data Warehouse.

Even though many people would say that this is isolated staff development, I see it as so much more.  Our English Department has become the catalyst for learning for those around them. Now others want to know how to use a wiki for instructional purposes and desire to learn more about Twitter and why it matters to Alden. Our participants in Teacher Center courses are asking for more. (I wish I had recorded the tribute that was given to Angela, singing her praises and the effect that she has on daily classroom instruction and ultimately student learning!) And of course, she has spent countless hours fine tuning our data report, meeting every need of our district, and never letting me down in a very stressful time period. Thank you, Angela.

Jennifer is an unsung hero in many of our eyes. There is rarely a time that I don’t go to a meeting and someone mentions her name, her work and their admiration for her skills and availability to those of us who can only pretend to know and understand data and useful tools as well as she does some day. I often get to learn from Jennifer during WNYDIG. She learns, she shares and she contributes to the conversation that stretches our thinking and basic knowledge! Jennifer also peer reviewed our data presentation with Angela. She gave great feedback, taught some very useful and cool tricks, and made data a little more attainable to me who finds data less than desirable at most times. I also follow Jennifer on Twitter. She is a great resource and models learning every day. Thank you, Jennifer.

So, let’s talk about nesting. After learning data tricks from Angela, I was practicing on my own yesterday and realized I was struggling with the concept of nesting. I wrote a quick email to our regional data resource and asked some specific questions regarding nesting in Firefox. I was told that it was not possible. I forwarded the message to Angela just as an fyi. She shared with Jennifer who immediately wrote me back and showed me a way that it IS possible. WOW! How cool is that? We have an expert in our own backyard who knows our tools and tricks of the trade better than most.

Add these experts to your professional network!

Yesterday, I attended a Director of Physical Education (PE) meeting.  So, going into the meeting, I had a perception of the agenda, the topics, the concerns, the solutions and so forth.  I figured we would spend a lot of the time talking about our required Physical Education Plan, an impending PE audit, lack of certified coaches and more.  These are all worthy topics, but I often wish for more learning and discussing about physical education curriculum and instruction.  We talked quietly about the issues before the meeting and during the breaks, but during the meeting, we joined a wikispace and Ning.  That is right. We used web 2.0 tools!

What struck me the most is that I anticipated that this would not be well-received as a whole. I am an avid user of web 2.0 tools, but I wasn’t sure how these busy folks would receive this new information. Very few in the room had ever heard of a wiki and even fewer knew of Ning. They joined up, listened to the vision of the wiki and the Ning, participated in the sharing and conversation and appreciated the varied resources available on our PE wikispace. Two thumbs up to Monica for preparation of the wikispace and Ning for our group.

The people at my table most appreciated that resources were available at their fingetips versus trying to find things on our state education web site.  They also liked the idea that they could collaborate and discuss issues (minor and complicated) without clogging up their home and school email. They could see the value right away.  I keep forgetting how far we can stretch ourselves regardless of our profession.  Sometimes we just need a little nudge, a little knowledge and a little time to see the potential of others around us.