New adventure...

I've been researching for several years trying to link my passions with an ability to earn extra money from home. Ok, I bet the rest of the universe is doing it too! I'm hoping I'm just a late bloomer and I will successfully take off in my new adventure. Yaro Starak's site really was quite informative and easy to read and understand. Coupled with a search for freelance blogging work...there's hope for me yet.


I'm a teacher, we all know that teaching is NOT a get rich career path, so why you ask do you travel that road? I stumbled on it inadvertently. I was a self-employed realtor in the 80's and 90's. When the market took a downturn, I started subbing to supplement my income. It was quite ideal actually. I was a mom of 2 at the time, both were school-age. So when snowdays occurred, I did not have to worry, I was off as well, summers off, holidays off, you know the drill.


I subbed for 7 years. My kids were heading for college when I decided I wanted to go back to school too. Becoming a student really helped me to transition through the empty nest syndrome and my recent divorce. In 18 months I earned my Master's in Computer Technology Education and with the help of a wonderful friend, I was hired as a full time teacher, with the condition that I needed to also earn a teaching certificate which meant 6 education classes.


Teaching has been wonderful. I've loved every minute of my 10 years and I am astounded with the wealth of information I have learned over these years as a teacher. The students continue to energize me!

Well, I'm now in my second half century of life and realize that my finances are not what they should be. I also would like to use my tech, writing and teaching passions to see if I can earn money from home part time.


So it is now time for me to take the plunge and to apply my hours of internet research, marry it to my thirst to use technology with my new goal of getting "published" and hopefully earn some extra money for my "golden years".

Getting Connected

Having just attended the annual MAINEducation Technology Conference at the Augusta Civic Center, I have to say, I am re-inspired and re-energized. The keynote speaker, Will Richardson, set the day off with mind provoking and challenging statements. His own blog can be read at Weblogg-ed.com. Which, by the way, I did go to. I can't seem to get enough. Yup, bought his book too, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms". Good thing I did, that's how I got to accomplish setting up my own blog site to join the blog-world. The pre-conference workshop I attended was equally fun and mind boggling. Moodling. Who knew? Romeo Marquis offered a hands-on step by step how to Moodle. I found the workshop, 3 hours short, introduced me to another amazing tool. Perhaps just the venue I will need to offer online classes for my school. My thirst for Web 2.0 features, as it is now coined to be, is unsatiable. I need to blog...I just need to. Coolcatteacher, Miss Vicky, was equally inspiring giving us concrete useful examples why/how we need to blog to communicate with today's youth.


Ok, so last year, I tried, but I knew that there had to be a better way to connect my students. I attempted to ignite my students in a "virtual classroom" to enable them to have an organized discussion online. So, using tappedin.org as the forum, off we went. The support tremendous, but I could not "maneuver" their system easily, too many rooms and floors for my inexperienced brain. The time I needed to go through the content posted and the level of enrichment the students gained appeared tremendously disproportionate. Though I do admit, there was a moderate stir of excitement, you know, something new to do! Well, maybe I gave up too soon.

I'm here to tell you, I'm back. Re-excited, re-energized. A blogging we will go.......