The Smartboard is - ringing?

I just spent the last 2 hours on a virtual tour. Before I enrolled in a class entitled, “Technology and the Classroom”, I thought I was in the ‘know’ on current sites and social networking. Was I ever mistaken! In addition to Facebook, I now can’t wait to work on assignments on my Wiki account and plan next weekends girls’ camping trip on it to impress my friends, I’m tweeting to the world, I’m setting up on Google Docs, I’m addicted to finding creative lesson ideas on Youtube, I’m enthralled with Podcasts, and I’m still trying to figure out how to successively use RRS feeds and Delicious. Yesterday, teaching, in my mind, included paper, textbooks, and pens. After last night, it’s radically different. It now includes Smartboards, cool pen-like gadgets that record people talking, virtual classrooms and video streaming. I can envision using these tools in my future classroom. I would love to be able to keep up with current events around the world and hear other responses from classrooms around the world. To give that level of exposure to a student was never heard of or imagined. I’ll have to be careful not to be addicted to Youtube in striving to make lesson plans better and creative. I can show clips from pretty much everything in my classroom. And for sure, my students will know about Google Docs. I feel ripped-off by my teachers for never have been told of such a fabulous resource. Well, that’s all for now. Here’s to starting into a new era of teaching with technology!