Final Reflection

I begin this reflection with a big thanks to Myra. She is the reason this class was such a success and worthwhile. I had no idea she knew so much about Web 2.0. Everyone was a bit apprehensive at the start of this class and now I can safely say that we are all fairly comfortable navigating through all of the gadgets and sites we've learned about.

The next step is trying to work with a few staff members and come up with some ways to incorporate these tools into classroom projects. Learning how to create my own "wiki" was very interesting and I can see how this might benefit teachers with collaboration.

A few of my favorite sites are Flickr, Library Thing, Google Docs. It's amazing to have so much storage for pictures and be able to access them from any computer at any time. Also, Library Thing will come in very handy as I keep track of every book I've ever read and actually remember that I did in fact read it and also see the summary I wrote about it. :) I do tend to forget as time goes by. Google calendar is something that I could use for organizing library events and available time slots, I believe Silver Creek already does this and it works well for them.

As I learned each new "thing" I realized that my job as a media clerk is changing steadily. It's not just about shelving books, checking books out, or finding that right book. It is now shaped around technology and how it can be used to attain information, present projects and collaborate with people around the world. This I would have to say is what was meaningful to me. Seeing how all of these tools shape how we can learn, interact and play was cool.

This PST experience was so overwhelming at first but with each new week I began to feel more at ease. I gained so much experience in such a small amount of time. These classes would benefit more than just media clerks and offering them to all teaching staff would be worthwhile. I'm definitely more at ease when dealing with "techie" staff members and feel I can now have a bit more valuable interaction time with my colleagues.

Thing #23 Expand Your Mind

Where to begin! I thoroughly enjoyed every class throughout this project. There were times when I thought I would definitely throw my hands up and not do another thing on the computer. I'm much better now and I can't thank Myra enough for all of her support and tons and tons of information she handed my way. We all could have easily gone on for another month.

My favorite part was creating my own blog page. It was fun to individualize "my space" as we went along and learned new things. Just learning this skill has made me feel much more at ease when talking about and reading blogs. I now have a new way to communicate and touch base with someone all the way around the world and learn new ideas.

Podcasting, wiki's and photo sites are just some of the projects I would like to try in the library. I plan on teaching someone over the summer everything that I've learned. Myra might be getting a few calls over the summer since I'm not the Web 2.0 guru she is.

Thanks for the wealth of information Myra!!!!

Thing #22 Your Cell Phone as a Tool

I'm not quite ready to jump on the bandwagon just yet. While there are some cool features and fun things to do I'm still old fashioned. There are a few reasons that it might be beneficial. Most students already own a cell phone, a cell phone is relatively cheap compared to other digital tools. Although, in order to be effective every cell phone would have to basically be the same and have all the same features. Text prices and viewing pictures could become costly and who would cover these fees?

Edutopia talked about a few cool tools. The Bluetooth dongle sounds like a fun tool. It allows wireless transfer from say a cell phone to a computer. At just $20 this is a fairly reasonable price. They also talked about using a laptop for just about everything. One person had the idea to put every textbook online and the student wouldn't have to carry around books and it would save a ton of money for the school. I can't really see the cost being better unless every student has a pc. If the school had to supply and upkeep that many laptops, ouch!

I'm not sure which way I sway on the effectiveness of these tools. I would probably be easily swayed if I saw all of these tools in action with classes doing hands on projects and they loved it!

Thing #21 Copyright & Freedom of Info

Every library should have a once a year class where they touch upon these issues. Bookmark a few sites, give the students a short project to work on and go over each one to decide if it's done correctly or not. This type of class could be covered in the English classes so everyone would take it.

There are a few teachers that have issues with copyright laws, mainly pertaining to videos/DVDs. I always cover my end by showing them the rules and let it go from there. In one ear and out the other.

The Creative Commons with Flickr is pretty cool. There's so much to cover as discussed in the guidelines that had been created to create at least a general rule of thumb to cover.

Thing #20 Social Networking

Okay, the verdict is still the same, I'm not crazy about social networking. In the correct setting with the safety rules strictly enforced it could be used in school. Teens are so naive and "out there" that they will post just about anything. I'm trying to be open minded and think about how this could really work.

My daughter asked if she could open a Myspace account. To this date I have said no. The problem comes into play that even if she is safe and follows rules it doesn't mean others will do the same about her space and pics. When I see people my age, married and posting on Myspace I have to ask "why". Are they bored, need some excitement, or just friendly and enjoying being able to visit with people all around the world.

This could probably be used in a class project with the teacher as the facilitator and communicating with people from another country. It would be very cool to see pictures and interact to learn cultures of certain areas.

Thing #19 Microblogging

I just finished joining Twitter.com and making my first post. I have to tell you it felt completely ridiculous to just throw something out there about what I just finished doing. Drinking morning coffee and doing laundry seems so normal and boring how can anyone be interested in that?? It seems that there isn't enough room to type anything worthwhile about work/ideas pertaining to my job. I just don't get it yet.

If anyone else has joined Twitter let me know so we can follow each other and be ridiculous together. I found Alice Yorks name since she was in my personal email contact list but that's the only one since I didn't use my work email. Oops, I should've done that. I will post more later after Twittering for a few days....

Thing #18 YouTube, TeacherTube, and user generated video