This summer has been an incredible learning experience for me in terms of my own professional development – specifically with the digital world.  A friend and colleague was teaching a free MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and I decided to participate.  Over the course of 5 weeks I learned about online safey, creating and caring for your digital footprint, twitter as a professional networking tool and cyberbullying.  Through this course, I heard about another free online course, Powersearching with Google and I decided to explore that as well.  Both of these courses were open to anyone who was interested.  I participated on my own time and in my own way to make the learning meaningful for me.  This led me to finding out about Connected Educator Month and a free online bookclub.  It sounded like an interesting venture to participate in so I joined that also.  The format was a combination of a weekly Blackboard Collaborate Session (a virtual classroom) and a ning where I could connect with other educators in the course.  The book was called The Connected Educator – Learning and Leading in a Digital Age by Sheryl Nussbaun-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall.

I am amazed at all that I have learned this summer and feel honoured to have connected with educators from all over the world.  I continue my quest; learning about the best ways to infuse technology into our students’ education and how I can grow as a professional through “connected education” and life-long learning.  The word cloud below represents key aspects of my summer learning – my digital footprint for Summer 2012.