Video Conferencing (in?) the Classroom

In anticipation of earning my online teaching endorsement, I have been thinking about how this will all look.  Will I teach from the comfort of my own home, using technology like video conferencing?  Or will I have kids in a classroom that I will monitor as they work on assignments online?  I feel like that is already what I am doing by using Moodle in my Multicultural Literature class, so it seems like that would be a waste of my online teaching endorsement.  I am trying to figure out how to use video conferencing if this is a true online course, as this seems to be the best way to make connections with the students so that they can see that I still care about them and want to know them.  I believe the students who struggle with the traditional classroom structure seem to be prime candidates for online courses, and these are also the students who thrive with a teacher who they trust and who cares about them. 
After video conferencing with Louis, I realized that online courses can still have a face-to-face component.  I felt that I got to know Louis a bit from that half hour session, and because it was one-on-one video conferencing, I also felt that he got to know me a bit better.  I would definitely use video conferencing for this reason alone.  However, these kids would need more one-on-one attention than a half hour conference, so it would need to be frequent, perhaps even weekly. 

I taught summer school last year, and video conferencing would have been awesome for that venue.  If I teach summer school this year, I plan to use it with the kids who don't show up on a regular basis.  This way, they can still complete work from home and talk to me about it online.  I also plan to use Google Docs for the same reasons.

Browsers and Social Bookmarking: A Recipe for a Headache?

I realize that I need to be up to speed on technology, and in many cases, I'm not too bad with it.  However, social bookmarking threw me for a loop.  I understand the concept, mostly, but comparing the various social bookmarking sites actually confused me more and made me doubt any understanding I had.  While I appreciate the offer to call Louis when we are struggling, I didn't call him for this because I fear I would have had him on the phone all day today, and I still would have unanswered questions that I probably don't even know I have yet.  I will give it a good faith effort to try using Diigo, mostly because I do get annoyed that I save something as a favorite on one computer, but then it is not saved on another computer; therefore, social bookmarking would be wonderful for this.  I will need to be hands-on with this new-to-me technology before I can truly decide if it is a worthy headache.  I will first try sharing my bookmarks with colleagues for the purpose of collaboration before trying to use it with students so that I am assured that I know the features and how to best use it.  Once I get to a point of comfort and confidence and am ready to go live with students, I plan to use it for research purposes with my Multicultural Literature class.  I may begin by simply assigning them to create a social bookmark for a particular culture, or I may ask them to visit my bookmarks and synthesize the information from them.  It will take a leap of faith on my part!

Regarding browsers, this is a matter of me stepping outside of my comfort zone, too.  I am so familiar with Internet Explorer that I have never really tried anything else.  Conducting research on the other four browsers, though, has made me think that maybe all the little annoyances that I get with Internet Explorer do not have to be; I could try another browser, and the problems could disappear.  I know that some of my students' browser of choice is Mozilla Firefox, with which I am only slightly familiar, but they seem to have success with it, especially when Internet Explorer fails.  I think I need to be at least basic to proficient with each of the "major" browsers so that when my students use them I can work with them.  Yet another task to master.  When will this get easy for me???