Are You a "Wired" Teacher?

Was reading "Digital Learning Environment Blog" and came across Jon Orech's Essentials for the "Wired" Teacher. I have been charged with modernizing classrooms in our district. I often review new Web 2.0 tools to see if we can use them, and honestly, I just like technical "toys & tools"! But with this charge in the back of my mind, this article caught my attention. Below are the tools that he says are essential. You can follow the link back to his blog, so I thought I'd share which tools I use in these four areas.

Social networking
Still working on Twitter! The most sensible use I've heard for it is from Miguel Guhlin. When he needs answers to technical questions, he posts the question to the people he follows and gets immediate responses.

Most recently we have setup a social network for the people in our district that are helping implement Fast ForWord on campuses at http://mansfieldisdffw.ning.com/. It's just starting, but what a powerful way to share information, best practices, and ask for help - and get more than one response! I think social networks are a great tool for students and teachers to use to share information with a larger community than their classroom.

RSS
This is probably, hands down, my favorite way to get information right now. I use Netvibes to pull information to me daily related to the work I do. Visit http://www.netvibes.com/jannorth#Daily

Google
B.G. - what did we do before Google? I've learned many of the search tricks, but the one Jon describes about making a custom RSS feed is cool! We also use Google Docs, Google Earth, Google Sky in classrooms.

Social bookmarking
Really like http://delicious.com/ and have used that, but am working on learning Diigo. I like being able to share bookmarks with others and gain their expertise in finding cool websites!

Personal homepage
I use my Wetpaint wiki as my personal homepage for work. It has become useful for me to post information and blended learning activities when I do staff development. After reading Jon's blog I've signed up for an Issuu account and will begin exploring it!