How to find the time!

So many of you have asked me how I find the time to get involved in the Web 2.0 stuff so I decided to share a history of how I got hooked.

Last Spring I attended a workshop in Madison where I was taught about iGoogle. I started using iGoogle and appreciated the tools it brought to my desktop. Mainly the to do list, mapquest, calendar and calculator. Then late this summer I was attending another workshop in Madison that was very slow and boring. I happened to be sitting by John Pederson from Cesa 3 and he showed me Twitter. I did not "get it" but played along and created an account and began following John on Twitter. WOW - This is weird but it has changed my professional life.

About this same time Kirk Benke from Region 4 in Houston called and asked me to deliver a series of workshops using a web based tool. So instead of going to Houston for a couple of days like I had been doing each year, this time I could stay at home and teach the workshops. This was awesome and worked really well until the server crashed in Houston. Kirk and I had both been using Skype so we just switched mid presentation to a Skype call and saved the workshop.


In SeptemberI became involved in a writing project with friends from the east coast. I am hoping to share this product with you soon - waiting now for publisher. We used the web based writing tools to collaborate and write shared documents - thus my introduction to http://www.writeboard.com/ .

Then at CTG - I met many new friends who were also very involved in Web 2.0 tools for special education. By the way - I Twitter with them daily. We also meet in Second Life which is a virtual world and another blog post. There I learned about the Tuesday night webcast called WOW 2.0. This is Woman of the Web 2.0 (WOW). It is broadcast every Tuesday night at 8:00 or you can listen to the archive at any time. WOW also has a chat room that you can participate in as your are listening to the webcast. Now I am addicted and you will find me every Tuesday night in WOW 2.0.

Then I also was asked to develop a class based on Web 2.0 tools for educators in a Masters of Technology Program. This prompted me to begin collecting and using these awesome and FREE tools.

So if you would like to get involved with Web 2.0 - start gradually. iGoogle is a great place to begin. See if it makes your life easier. If so use it and get comfortable. Then add another tool to your repetoire. I only use the tools that make my life easier.