Web 2.0 Specialists I Admire

So the first person I thought of when it comes to Web 2.0 in the classroom was Traci Blazosky. I attended a Discovery Virtual Conference several years ago and she was a presenter, and she "wowed" me. She shared tools like Glogster, Voki, Blabberize, and Camtasia. She had integrated glogs into a Google Earth tour, and I was amazed. I had always had a love of technology in the classroom, but she displayed some amazing ways to make it happen in a primary classroom. Traci taught me that younger students are capable of creating some great work, and that technology integration is not impossible with young students. After attending the virtual conference I incorporated some of the things she shared into my classroom. She had an awesome wiki site with links to various Web 2.0 tools, and while she's no longer teaching first grade the site is still online.

My next human filter works next door to me. Brandy Casey has been teaching for 8 years, and during her years of teaching her access to technology has changed vastly. She's now got a projector, smartboard, document camera, and an iPad, all of which she uses daily. While I don't share a lot of the cool Web 2.0 resources I find with all of my co-workers, I do share them with her. She is a great for personal discussion of possibilities, and I value her opinion greatly. She's becoming more and more of a technological guru, and she's loving it! We learn a lot from one another, and I'm grateful to have someone close to me to discuss websites and their potential benefits for the classroom.

My final human filter is an individual I have followed on Twitter for some time now. His name is Steven Anderson or @web20classroom. He's a great resource for ideas, research, resources, innovation, and professional development. While I've never attended a conference where he's presented, I have learned a great deal from him via Twitter. He along with other Twitter friends introduced me to the idea of "back-channelling" and I've "attended" several conferences by reading the back channels that occur on twitter.

There are many others I learn from on a daily basis, but these three people have taught me a lot, and while they may not know it, they have been very influential when it comes to my teaching and my classroom.