I am not sure how I found this site (I am sure that it was from one of my Tweeps) but it gave me some ideas about what skills I should possess to be considered a techie teacher.  It helped me to narrow down topics to focus on and what direction I should take.  The site is 21 Things for the 21st Century Project and they use the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers as the basis for their working platform.  They state that the purpose of their site is to

The purpose of this resource is to provide ”Just in Time” training through an online interface for K-12 educators based on the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). These standards are the basic technology skills every educator should possess. In the process, educators will develop their own skills and discover what students need in order to meet the NETS for Students

I have come a long way technologically and I want to continue progressing as I prepare myself for next school year.  This site has made me actually consider what skills are needed to foster the educational technology skills that our students will need in high school, college and beyond.

Here is the list of 21 “things” for the 21^st Century

1. Assessment & Evaluation tools
2. Basics
3. Blogs
4. Collaboration Tools
5. Content Area Tools
6. Differentiated Instruction & Diverse Learning
7. Digital Citizenship
8. Digital Images
9. Digital Story Telling
10. Face of Your Classroom
11. Mentoring an Online Learner
12. Online Interactive Learning Tools
13. Online Video Resources
14. Podcasting
15. Productivity Tools
16. Professional Development
17. Professional Organizations and Networking
18. Research & Reference Tools
19. Staying Informed
20. Staying Organized
21. Visual Learning

OK. What does all that really mean? Uh huh.  I am going to use these bullets as topics for my personal professional development workshops.  As teachers we should be able to complete an activity or assignment to show our proficiency in that task/topic.  I guess.  Well I mean, I don’t guess.  I know.  I guess that I am willing to publicly take this journey.  For the next few weeks I will create a daily post explaining a topic and displaying an example of how I do/will use the tool/topic in the classroom.  The topics are in alpha order and not in order of importance.  I will eventually work my way through all 21, but the ones I am tackling first are the ones that are underlined.  I will link the finished blog posts to this one. BEWARE

All of us are works in progress with a long way to go before we reach our full potential.

In what skill or area are you still working to make progress?