This was definitely an exercise in patience and determination not to let it get the best of me - the 2nd time around. Since I was so overwhelmed when trying to complete the class with the other librarians during the school year, as they say on "5th grader" - I had to drop out. I am glad I went through all Things though. At least now I'll know what people are talking about.
It is definitely "changing, challenging, and exciting." There are quite a few things that I loved learning about and working on even though it usually took me 3 hours to complete each thing. I love del.icio.us for storing my bookmarks; I went from school, to home, to laptop, to my son's computer without any problems. Of course, I really like Imagechef, Animoto and Flickr and will continue to use these. I really liked finding some of the sites geared toward the library, i.e. Library Thing. I did not like creating an Avatar; it was pointless to me and took such a long time to finish.
As far as my lifelong learning goals, there is a whole world out there that I don't know about or understand. To me it is too time consuming. "Don't text me, just call me and leave a message. I'll call you back." I want to interact with another human that understands and can explain it to me. That said, I realize this technology is THE future.
I suggest you move Social bookmarking to an earlier thing. It was very helpful to have bookmarks "to go" wherever I went.
I would probably take another discovery program, but not during the school year. My time is so limited that I just can't concentrate and these courses easily intimidate me.
I would like to demonstrate some of the things I learned to our faculty and students. However, with the district's filter, most of this would be impossible to have the students learn. There are several teachers who will love the tools we learned about while others would run away - kicking and screaming. I would like to set up a blog for the Lone Star books and have students review and post comments; I think this would be easily accomplished by continuing the wiki I started.
Keeping up with Web 2.0 and beyond is probably best accomplished through RSS, readers, and alerts. I will maintain a couple of these, but delete and cancel several subscriptions. I do not feel comfortable with My Space and Facebook - even my son raised an eyebrow when I asked if I could be his friend. I am definitely a private person and will not share things on the internet. I don't trust the privacy of the internet - there are so many people who know how to access accounts, etc. For some reason, the bad people know all the tricks.
Where do I go from here? I'm not really sure. Yes, I will continue a few things, but I doubt that I will spend even 15 minutes a week on this. When I come home from school, the computer is the last thing I want to use and it's virtually impossible at school. However, I have already passed on several "things" to family and friends. I will definitely encourage other teachers to take the class.
As I re-read this summary before posting, I realize I sound negative. It was time consuming and often frustrating, but definitely FUN at times. I will do my best to continue to explore and maybe with time I will improve some of these skills. Ha!Ha!
Thanks for the introduction and lessons; it was truly insightful. I'll just count on YOU to keep me informed.
3 comments:
You've done a fantastic job! There are so many web 2.0 tools out there - if you can adopt just a couple and put them into your practice, you are doing great! Congrats on finishing with time to spare.
I really enjoyed meeting you as well! I posted a slideshow that I found online to my blogspot. I think it really is great! You should check it out!
I understand your frustration, and I consider myself tech savvy. It did take a lot of time, but I feel it was time well spent. You did a great job!!! Don't forget to contact your ETF to help you with any technology projects. We are here to help you anytime, anywhere.
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