A Sharing Community

You never know when your small idea will ignite a fire
in the mind of another.

I get an interesting reaction from people who know that I've retired but am still involved in education and the online education community.  "Why are you doing this?" they say, "You're supposed to be retired!"
So why am I doing this?

I think because interacting in an online education community has become such a passion for me.  It's a way to keep on learning, interact with an intelligent and interesting community and share or help out where I can.  People choose to give back to their communities in a variety of ways through volunteering their time and sharing their resources.  For me, that community resides online.

Which brings me to the K12 Online Conference keynote presented by Dean Shareski.  Dean makes the point that all teachers have a moral imperative to share and I agree.  Why not share his presentation with your colleagues?  The  K12 Online schedule is posted here.  I'm always amazed at the depth and breadth of these offerings, there really is something for everyone.

Image used under a creative commons licence by furiousgeorge81 - Thanks for sharing, George!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/furiousgeorge81/177926979/sizes/m/

TweetUp

Meeting with people you've only interacted with on Twitter takes conversations to a whole new level.  Last night I took part in a Vancouver area educators Tweet-Up along with a couple of colleagues and four others.  We had an established comfort level to build on, we knew each other's interests in education and technology and some of the barriers we deal with on a daily basis.

As we enjoyed some refreshments and good pub food we shared ideas, resources, philosophies and discussed the possibilities for future meetings and joint projects.  It was a great evening of laughter and some undirected Friday night Pro D.  Thanks @davidwees for organizing this event.

Resources I bookmarked this week:

Guest blogger Melissa Smith on Differentiated Professional Development on Wes Fryer's blog offer's some great online suggestions for Pro D. opportunities.

Google Docs tip sheet and resource guide.  More Google Docs resources can be found in Delicious.

Free easy and useful creation tools from New York Times The Learning Network.

Where Good Ideas Come From a 4 minute video that would be useful for starting conversations around teaching methods and classroom structure.