Sometimes the lead, mostly a member of the pack...

My prior experiences in Web 2.0 technologies have been broad, but limited. It started when I joined Facebook. My family had traveled to Peru for a month and when we came home, my 23 year old brother stayed to travel in other countries. He encouraged us to join Facebook, which he was already using to communicate with his friends and post photos and updates of his travels. It met our needs to keep in touch with him and was easy to use. We began sharing updates with each other and then branched out to our own friend groups, and then it exploded. Not only have I reconnected with over 200 friends, I have also saved 150 square feet of rainforest, advertised community events and created a group for teachers to plan together over the summer.
Skype was introduced to our family when my cousin moved to London and we found this program allowed us to talk to each other without paying long distance. When my niece was born in Tampa, we used Skype to stay in touch and look and listen to the new baby.
As with most changes and innovations, I am a slow and steady learner. I want to learn things that will make something easier or better. I am not interested in learning every new technology that’s available. This definitely makes me a follower in most areas.
In working on projects, I have learned about Wikispaces and Adobe Captivate and participated in live chats on Blackboard and Wiki. In these projects I am being introduced to new technologies and learning from others. As I learn new information, I try to incorporate it into my personal life and introduce it to my coworkers. In small areas of my life, I am an expert in comparison to other people and I share my knowledge when possible.
As I have progressed through my degree program at FSU, I have learned more about the interactivity of the web and experimented with different programs. I have definitely become an expert in using discussion boards and have used that experience in organizing the group of teachers. As we organized the group we decided on goals we wanted to accomplish and agreed on how we would use the group. This is similar to how our professors communicate objectives for a class and the expectations for participation.