C4T Summary Post: Teacher #4

I was assigned to read and comment on a blog by JF Hadley.  Her blog is titled Middle School Matrix: Exploring the changing world of Middle School teaching and technology.  Her first teaching job was in Los Angeles teaching a 5th grade class.  After her children reached high school she started teaching again.  She taught english and history at an all girls school.  I commented on her blog post titled, "Why we go to conferences."  Hadley went to a conference in Toronto called ECOO (Educational Computing Organization of Ontario).  A good point she made was that while online tools are great for connecting, there is nothing about face-to-face time. I agree with this because you can not really understand a person fully by just reading their words.  It is always better to be face on with a person because you can see their emotion through the sound of their voice and facial expressions.  She talked about how she followed a man on twitter and was a big fan of his posts.  When she was at this conference that same man was also there.  He was chatting in a group with her and some others that were also attending the conference.  After they sat back down there was a twitter update from the man she followed on twitter that included some of the peoples names in the group.  She then realized that just because you know who someone is, it does not mean they know who you are.  Conferences are a good way to potentially meet some of those people you follow on twitter or other sites.  They also give you the opportunity to build friendships with new teachers who you can possibly follow one day to better yourself as a teacher.