I’ve been actively interacting with others online for about 5 years and have made meaningful friendships with many educators! I started with reading educator blogs, then joined twitter, plurk, and eventually facebook. This was a lot of fun to look back and relive some memories!
At our district technology conference that is held every summer, I was able to meet many of my online friends who live in my state. That was so exciting for me! It was also thrilling to meet the 2 keynote speakers (David Jakes -@davidjakes and Ewan McIntosh- @ewanmcintosh) who I had “met” on Twitter! I felt like I was meeting famous celebrities! Now every year, I look forward to meeting all my friends in person!
In 2007, our cruise ship stopped in Puerto Rico and we met Yolanda Carrisquillo and her husband. Yolanda was a digital scrapbooking friend I met online.Then in 2008 at the Council for Exceptional Children convention in Boston, I met Christina Southard in person. I was thrilled to meet someone that I knew online at a conference we were both attending in another state!
On a trip out west in 2009, we stopped in Hutchinson, KS where I met my Kansas friends. It was thrilling to put 
out on Twitter and Plurk that where we would be eating dinner and have people show up to meet us! Ever since then, my husband became a true believer in social networking!
When we reached Oregon in 2009, we met another online scrapbooking friend Meg Beverly and her children. It was fun to explore the beach with them and find “treasures!”
We also met Diane Cordell (@dmcordell) and her husband when we traveled through upstate NY in 2009. When she came for a library conference in Charlotte, NC, we offered to pick her up at the airport so we could spend some time with her.
This year, Alan Levine (@cogdog) came down to SC on his adventure across the country so we were able to spend some time with him. When I mentioned to him that if he had time, we would love to meet him, I never imagined that he would really want to. For some reason I was awestruck that he was willing to come meet us! So, I guess the bottom line is: Don’t say to me “come visit us” or “I would love to meet you” if you really don’t mean it! :)
Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).
Original Images from Pat Hensley
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