Thing 18 - Building a Professional Network

I was a bit overwhelmed looking through Ning and MACUL Ning.  I think they would both be a great resource, but it seems like it might take a bit more time than I have to utilize them to their fullest potential.  I think the video conferences that are offered look fantastic (although I wasn't able to figure out yet how to access past programs, I am interested in participating in one in the future) and would be useful for staff to view as professional development.  It was wonderful to see by all the postings that there are a lot of other teachers like me who want to jump onboard Web 2.0.  This is obviously a great way to collaborate with other teachers around the planet.  The biggest problem I see is the time that it would require to stay on top of all of the information that I might be interested in.  In my time of browsing, I already found MANY sites I want to use with my kids!  The hardest thing will be to remember them all.  Some good ones I found were:  kerpoof.com where you can write stories, make movies, draw pictures, tons of stuff; http://www.eduplace.com/tales/ where you can work on parts of speech with lots of different mad libs; internet4classrooms.com has all kinds of internet activities to use at all grade levels K-8.