Headquarters is buzzing

      Lots of activity is found at the international headquarters in Austin this week. Two committee meeting this week and one was this past weekend. That keeps everyone busy. The headquarters staff works very hard to make everything easy for committee meetings since most committee members travel from places far and wide. The non-dues revenue committee met over the weekend and Marcia Kirkland, a committee member, said, " This is hard word to do so fast."
     Many who serve on an international committee for the first time are overwhelmed at the first meeting. They soon learn the ropes and many try for another committee after the experience. Each committee has a representative from each geographic region. Larger committees have more. The administrative staff serves on committees as the liaison from committee to headquarters. It's one of the exciting parts of being on the staff. You get to meet people from parts of Europe, Latin America, Canada and the United States.
      This week I'm headed to Dallas for the Texas Leadership Seminar. I'm so excited to have been selected for this opportunity. This way I'll get to meet members from across Texas and learn more about the state organization. I've adopted an Austin chapter and they have been grand. Membership certainly has many unseen benefits if you open doors as they appear.
      In April, I'm looking forward to taking the international president's message to New York and Missouri. I'll have more new friends after visiting each state organization convention. Of course, there are five regional conferences this summer and I will be visiting each. It will be a whirlwind summer- four weeks on the road back to back. They tell me it is an experience - a bit of work and some fun. Hope to meet some new friends in each area. I'll be looking to meet as many members as I can. I'm doing a workshop in Hershey and Denver- What you can do with Web 2.0. I hope you can join me.

DKGnetwork

Social networking will soon be available to the members of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International. Headquarters has planned the launch for January 2010.

The GoLightly platform will house the network and be a part of the international website. Within this site, members will have web 2.0 tools to create committee wikis, develop their own blogs, establish private discussion forums, use video and images to convey meaning to today's new teaching generation.


In addition to wikis and blogs, web 2.0 tools can include social bookmarking, like delicious, RSS, tag clouding, podcasts, photo sharing, and online video or media, such as YouTube or TeacherTube. Most of these tools are free. All one does is sign up for an account. One's involvement level deepens the experiences of collaborative community learning. In any social community we learn from others. The more one reads other blogs and participates in the social community, the more you learn.

In his book Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold talks about "people who are able to act in concert even when they don't know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible..." His views on smart mobs relate to the entire idea of social networking and collaborative work. Will Richardson talks about social media and how we as participants will de-focus on the tools of today but continue to latch onto "the “properties and dynamics” or the “network effects” that they bring about." The way of communication has forever changed. It is up to us, the world of educators at any level, to help one another learn the new world of collaboration and connectivity. The DKGnetwork is our first step toward that effort. Look for the launch in January.