Tool 2

1) I think it would be great to build an online education community and participate in a PLN. As educators, time - or lack there of - is the number one greatest enemy. An online community allows you to interact with your peers as a collective - like sitting with friends over lunch - without trying to arrange with one another's schedules. It has the potential to learn from the successes and mistakes of others to be a more successful educator. One of the fears that I have is that with online communities, your audience does not know how you are trying to deliver your message, so I am concerned that something I write may not come across as I had intended. But part of this experience is putting yourself out there and allowing yourself to be vulnerable to learn more. I am banking on the idea that the process of the experience will be just as valuable as the final product of knowledge I will acquire, so I am ready to try. Good luck to all!

2) Several things stood out to me regarding commenting advice from this tool. The first thing that I thought of is that it is easy to say something harsh quickly and words sting - as mentioned by cool cat. Part of this experience is just putting ourselves out there. The other thing that stood out to be was that children need to be educated on commenting safely, ethically and effectively. These are learned skills - just as we teach our children social etiquette - and our job as educators in a technological era requires us to expose children to appropriate online and offline behaviors.

3)Blogs I posted on -
Trog to Blog
PucheC
Suerth's Summer blog
Fairy Principal
The Little Blogger That Could
Blog It!