Reflection on a learning journey

I begin my reflection with kudos to Myra! She has such a far reaching understanding of all things web that I am in awe of her familiarity and knowledge of the internet. She presented each lesson in an organized manner with links to sites, and videos which provided more than enough information to fully explore each “thing”. Her instruction was concrete sequential and infused with an easy going manner, humor and personality. This has been, without a doubt the class in which I have been given tools that I will use for personal and library applications. It has whetted my appetite for more information. I smile as I re-read “thing 1 and thing 2” when everyone saw me as an overachiever, it turns out at the end that every one of the women in this class is an overachiever. It was a mind expanding journey that I shall miss. I hope that we have the opportunity to further explore Web 2.0 and continue learning as the “things” are evolving at a blinding rate.
There are several "things" that that I will continue to use personally. First is blogging, I have even created a personal blog, A View From The Ridge. I have always loved to write and have folders full of my ramblings, now I have an outlet for that creative urge. Second, I love Flickr and appreciate the capability to store all my photos and have them available on any computer. I look forward to having time to further explore, download, share and manipulate my pictures. My personal Wiki projects went nowhere, there are only three persons on the school retirement committee so e-mails worked fine and the Gore Range Rendezvous folk were not at all receptive to the idea (dinners and in person planning is more their style!) I am experimenting with Google Draw as I do love plotting gardens; rearranging and designing rooms.
For school use there are so many things that are interesting and some that I hope teachers will want to know more about and use in their classroom. Of course my favorite is Library Thing. I have added many of the books that I have read and am in the process of updating my book reviews. When I am asked to do a book talk I can go to my account, pull up the book read my review and be prepared for the class. As a group, we are developing a media clerk manual using a Wiki. This collaborative effort will serve as an indispensible means to share what the media clerk’s job in 2008 truly entails. It has been a great exercise to put into words what we do on a daily basis. The Wiki could be used to train new clerks. In Teacher Tube I see the opportunity for students to produce book reviews, reports and other productions, record them with our new flip camera and post them to teacher tube. Wikis would be useful for students working on a group project. The use of web 2.0 in classroom setting is limited only by the fact that most people do not know about them and have not time to explore and implement. I hope to see professional development incorporate some of these in the teacher training days.
Finally I hope that more classes and PSTs are offered in this area. It would be wonderful to have more in-depth focus and time to use and experiment with each new thing. I am excited to continue to search for web tools and find ways to utilize them in my personal life and as a media clerk. In order to have the library media center remain a crucial part of the school, we must find ways to integrate technology in ways that excite our students. That will require better delivery systems and staff that have knowledge of information technology applications.