Connecting in an ever changing world

Learning all these techy things has just made my creative side thrive. I have been so worried that I was just going to be a by the curriculum teacher, and now I can see more innovative ways to get technology into my lessons.
Being able to Skype with other educators around the world during a lesson is incredible. If I was doing a Japanese lesson, how cool would it be to have the students connect with Japanese students in Japan and see what school life is like for them! I truly believe that learning this way not only gives the students a better understanding of the culture, but it also taps into their empathy and how they can identify with someones struggle. Not everyone can have the experience of being cultured by traveling overseas, but with Skype, it gives the students that cultural experience without having to leave the classroom.
I also feel like because there are so many different apps to use, there should be some kind of ongoing technology courses for teachers or conferences.
I would definitely use all of the tools that I have learned from this class in all my lessons.  Because you can get the students interested in subjects they were not interested in through the technology and still maintain connectivity. A good example of this was one of the videos I watched, was a 4th grade class where they used MinecraftEdu. They created a world with every social economic status, each student was born into the different countries with these different social economic statuses, they then connected with each other on how they could increase their opportunities. So, the students who were born into the poor country, they had to figure out how they could increase their opportunities in order to improve their social economic status. They then went back into the game and farmed and sold their farmed goods, ect.....
Using technology in education just makes our lesson planning endless!