Thing #23

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I really enjoyed learning about Flikr (although Photobucket seems to me to be easier to use), and Googledocs (there are several in there that I expect to use regularly). I knew a little about Wikis and now feel much more comfortable about using them. But my favorite was Podcasts - they intimidated me and I never even attempted them before, and now I see how silly that was and hope (if I can get our technology to cooperate) to make use of them for book talks at our school.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

It was like a super condensed college course - learned so many new things it made my head spin from everything roiling around in there. It made me feel good about myself and the time spent this summer learning new things, and I feel I will be a lot more interesting and au courant talking to my grandchildren and students. It has inspired me to become more technologically savvy and try to keep up with all the fast paced changes.

3. Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I must say the inclusion of Avatars surprised me - I thought they were for the gamer group of people and never really thought of them in any relationship to teaching or libraries.

4. What could be do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept?

Firstly, I think it is wonderful and don't have any criticism at all. As an older learner with less than the most up to date equipment, it was a little frustrating when things wouldn't load as they were supposed to and videos couldn't be viewed on your site - more troubleshooting help might be nice.

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

In a New York minute!

6. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?

It opened up a whole new world of learning possibilities and energized and excited me about the upcoming school year.

Thing #22

I really like the idea of nings. The format is simple, seems easy to set up and navigate, and I could see that teachers in many areas of grades maybe six and up could do really great things with it. I think a local librarian ning could be helpful for surrounding school districts to share things of local interest. It might help us not have to constantly reinvent the wheel!

Thing #21

OK - I tried!!!!! I made the very nice podcast which is a Book Talk about one of the Bluebonnet Books for this year - Pale Male. I saved it both ways as per your instructions, but each time I try to upload it, it either gives me an error message or it freezes on the upload half way through and does not complete. I could not view the Common Craft video either - it showed as an empty white box on your site. This would be very exciting to use, if it will work on our computers. My grandson, in the third grade in another school district, was in a class that made podcasts where they were candidates "running" for mayor. He was very proud of his podcast.

Addendum: Woo hoo!!!! Moved to the school secretary's computer (much better than mine) and got it to load!!! It doesn't have narration because I don't have a mike, and it isn't playing as clearly and sharply as it shows on the video program, but at least it is here!!!!!

Thing #20

I found this video, which is not really polished, but it gave me the idea of having a student make a "tour of the library" video to post on the school's website where they click on to our library section. Thought the visual done by a student would be better than what we might say.

Thing #19

Some of the sites wouldn't open for me, but I did explore most of them. I thought World Cat would be very helpful in finding books in other libraries, and Google Maps would be very helpful in school, since the maps in our atlases are out of date almost as soon as they are printed. I have never used Craigslist before (can you believe it?) because I didn't think there would be much there for our small town, even though my kids in big cities swear by it. But I was pleasantly surprised to find a free bike for my grandson and a free chest of drawers for my granddaughter, right here in our little village.

Thing #18

Wow, Google doc was so much fun to look over! They have templates for everything (lost pets, Christmas wish list, scrapbooking albums, plus all of the usual business type forms.) There was even a form for a survey of Star Wars vs Star Trek! Having the other language capability would be very handy for us - half our school speaks Spanish! I think that this is a sight that I will be using a lot.

Thing #17

http://www.rollyo.com/index.html#

I can see where this would be really handy for adults who do a lot of searching, and to set up previewed sites appropriate for students to use. At the elementary level, we spend a lot of time previewing sites so they will be ready for students to use when they come to the Media Lab to do research.