I almost hear a melody in the background:

She was afraid to come out of the locker
She was as nervous as she could be
She was afraid to come out of the locker
She was afraid that somebody would see

Those who would admit knowing those lyrics would be dating themselves. They do, however, sum up my trepidation at entering the “blogosphere”. I have been reading blogs for some time, and the conversations have been swirling in my head, causing me to occasionally comment, but more often, lurk, learn, practice, and then try to share with someone else the particular resource or skill. The conversations have opened up new worlds for me. I now feel like I have some very supportive “friends” out there who are willing to share what they know. Instead of the old days of covering your paper so the student next to you doesn’t see your answers, we “students” are now saying, “Look at my paper! This is what I wrote down. What do you think about it? What did you write?” and then, “Are you stuck on that problem? Here’s how I worked it out.” I like learning this way. Does that tell me something about how my own students might want to be learning?

So even though I may not have any great pearls of wisdom to share with the world, and the rest of the blogosphere will not be all a-twitter over my ideas or ruminations, it just may help me to understand better what I read and hear, and so I will write. Through this process I hope to grow and learn, hopefully become a better person, a better teacher who has come a long way from the my first trek down Blackberry Alley. I will do my best to make better use of the vast and ever-growing number of resources at hand,  and by doing so, I hope to enrich the learning experiences of my students.  It’s exciting to be a “life-long learner” !