Tool 2: Building Community Online

I visited at least 5 blogs.

The (at least) 5 that I visited were:

1. dy/dan (Math math.)
2. Always Learning. (though it appears as if she hasn't posted anything new since 2012. Has she stopped learning?)
3. The History Teacher's Attic. (I'm always looking to sneak other disciplines into my math lessons.)
4. Vi Hart (Math to keep you up at night.  Beautiful.)
5. Ms. A's Blog. (Because seriously: walking across the hall to talk to her in person is sometimes too much work.)

My coworkers have wonderful ideas and they are doing effective things I would like to incorporate into my own teaching.  But talking to them can be such a chore and that's where online commenting offers such an advantage (plus in person, we might get distracted and talk about non-educational things like how we're doing, family things, the weather...).  In addition to the seriousness of losing face-to-face contact with coworkers, the advantage of an online learning network is that it is much easier to see and interact with people in Beloit, Wisconsin or Gary, Indiana, or Toledo, Ohio and get ideas from outside our Stratford bubble.

I'm still quite iffy on sharing things online. I am hoping to reduce my online footprint, but it is getting harder and harder to do so.  Is this something I will have to deal with or is there a better way to share information with other people without opening it up to the entire world?  (I suppose I could walk the halls of my school and talk to people.)

I commented (in person and online, too) to Ms. Argeroplos about a website she came across.  Padlet.  It looks so much more user friendly than the Stratford teacher web pages.  I plan on visiting it some more.