Well this is my first blog post so needless to say, I am a beginner!  I am looking forward to learning in an online community and am hoping to gain some knowledge and practices to use in my junior high classroom.  Though blogging can be quite powerful, I’m interested to see if I can find a tool to help push my 21^st century students, who seem to have a very short attention span!  We have been working as learning communities at my school much more frequently the last couple of years where the focus is student work and data.  These communities help guide the teaching practice so that we see more success in the data.  ‘Paloff and Pratt (2005) distinguish between an online community, where people meet with a common interest, and an online learning community where people engage in collaborative learning and the reflective practice involved in transformative learning.’ (Herrington, Herrington and Reeves 2007).  I am looking forward to collaborating and being able to transform my teaching practice for the 21^st century learner.