Not the End - Just the Beginning

What a journey! It's just overwhelming, and exciting, to realize what is out there on the Internet just waiting for us. So much of what I have learned can be used to improve our teaching, students' learning, and their enjoyment of the process. I really liked the MyHeritage site for organizing information on your family tree, Zoho Writer for allowing users to use and share productivity tools online, Flickr and podcasting, for their creative aspects, and Del.icio.us for its ability to find, bookmark, and share websites online.

I realize I can never stop being a life-long learner and why would I want to, anyway? With information doubling and tripling everytime I blink, it seems, none of us can really afford to quit. I think being a life-long learner keeps you young and healthy!

I think I was surprised by how really easy each Thing turned out to be. I started this last fall and just couldn't devote the time to it, but it seemed much harder to me then. I had some preconceived notions coming into this class, but I enjoyed every assignment. It was a very time-consuming class for me, but not because it was too hard or because I had any real problems. I spent many hours reading through all the links and really trying to get a thorough understanding of each Thing before moving on.

I think it will be second nature for me to think more about incorporating technology into my teaching and into our program next year. I hope I am always mindful of that. Of course, I want to share my new knowledge with our students and teachers and will be looking for fun ways to do that next year. To keep up with the latest developments, I plan to take more staff development, attend sessions at TLA and subscribe to Web 2.0 news feeds. I would definitely take more of the same type of classes - just let me know when! I liked the format and can't think of any improvements. However, if you had anyone who felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of this course, my suggestion would be to offer the Things in 2 smaller classes.

I said it at the beginning and I still feel the same way today - Web 2.0 - Wow!

Thing #23 - Creative Commons

Is this a trick question? Twice on the 23 Things blog, the program is attributed to someone else: first to Helene Blowers at the Public Library of Charlotte and Meckleburg County Public Library. I clicked on the link on her name and was taken to the Learning 2.0 website, where it states hers is the original program created in August 2006. Here's the link to that site. It is Learning 2.0, not Web 2.0, but does incorporate some of the new Web technology. And, at the right, below the list of Things, is a *Note: this program is loosely based on 43 Things by Stephen Abram. Stephen's site is a personal growth site, where you list and work on 43 personal goals. Perhaps that's the way to get a big job like this done - one goal at a time and in a very structured, systematic way, as we have done. I'm very glad we are not learning 43 new Things, at least at one time!

As a librarian, I think I feel more freedom in using these tools in my own applications because we have been given rights to use them with less restrictions. It seems that Web 2.0 is more interested in sharing and collaborating and the copyright holders are giving permission to use their work like never before. I think it's wonderful. It will also be our responsibility to teach our students the proper way to acknowledge someone else's work and that it is still important. I think our students and our teachers will need to be kept up-to-date on the changing nature of copyright, and that is our job.

Thing #22 - Podcasts

Podcasting can serve two purposes: students can listen to them, as I have been doing this week, to learn new things. Great for auditory learners. They can also create their own podcasts to show what they have learned and to teach others. I've been listening to those types of podcasts, as well. Today, I subscribed to The French Podcast, conducted by a native speaker and frequently updated, that will help me improve my fast fading French. I have 99 episodes at my disposal! And, I can listen and work on something else (well, for French I do have to concentrate a little harder, so I won't be working on much). I found this resource through The Education Podcast Network, which is a wonderful site and full of some great podcasts. It is produced by educators to bring podcast programming together in one place in an effort to help teachers use 21st century technology in the classroom. There is a side bar that lists podcasts created by students and classrooms and some of them are just wonderful. In fact, all the feeds I listened to were very well done, even by children as young as 8. I did find that some of the links no longer existed and some of the feeds were several years old, but I believe the content was still appropriate.

I heard a group of children in Australia video podcasting about technology, a father and son discuss favorite books, and a class of 4th-graders in Nebraska talk about renewable energy. That's another Wow! for me. The side bar also includes lists of podcasts by subject matter and this is where I found The French Podcast. I would highly recommend the EPN site for educators. Last week, I came across a site called Absolutely Intercultural when I was looking for blogs and I subscribed to it. It comes from Germany and is really informative. I mentioned it in an earlier post. I also looked at Podcast Alley but thought EPN was much easier to use and more suited to educators.

Finding and listening to podcasts does inspire me to create one of my own. I'm thinking that our Stallions READ book club might like to create one next year to talk about the Tayshas books. We could do one a week...hmmmm..

Thing #21 - Animoto

Thing 21 falls between 15 and 16. I worked on it earlier, just in case!