Web 2.0 tools are already changing my own professional practices.  For instance, rather than students sharing their writing in class, they can have an authentic audience on the WWW, editing and commenting on their work via a wiki.  Instead of wondering what an author might think of our class interpretations of a novel, we invited the author to participate in a discussion board on our class wiki.  All of a sudden, the learning becomes incredibly exciting, real, and relevant. 

Today’s students are the digital natives, and living in their world, I need to reach out to them through their way of learning.  As an educator, I feel it is my responsibility and calling to find interactive ways to create content and learning environments for student growth.  What blows my mind is that students we teach today will have jobs in the future that do not even exist yet.  How do we prepare a generation of learners for a world that values creative thinking, problem solving, and seemless use of new technology tools as they become available? 

As a learner and individual, I am already finding tools that serve my own needs.  I particpate in facebook to keep track of friends around the world.  I participate in nicenet with some writers, where we give feedback on writing pieces.  I see uses of wikis and blogs in my own school as well.  Instead of my principal sending out a weekly TGIF inspiring note about something she observed each week, she could post her ideas on a blog or wiki, where all the faculty members could also post their responses and inspiring experiences of the week.  Instead of waiting for students to return from being absent, we can share documents online and post work for easy access to all.  The possibilities are endless, which is why it can also be so very overwhelming.