Reflection, the Final Assignment

Wow...eleven weeks of 1.5 hour classes, hours of homework, lots of hair pulling computer frustration, lots of laughs and "HOW DO YOU DO THAT" conversations with fellow media clerks and now I am typing my final reflection for this class that I was afraid to start. I have gone from square one of "what is blogging all about" to having confidence with navigating at least 23 "things" on Web 2.0, the Read/Write web, an interaction of information flowing back & forth.

Did the instructor cover the content adequately?

Myra was an excellent teacher and encourager to all of us (media clerks) in this class. She was always very well prepared and experienced in all of these Web 2.0 applications. A+ to Myra!

Did the class meet your expectations?

The 25 hours of class time and probably about 50 hours of homework, more than met my expectations for this LIBRARY LEARNING 2.0 for MEDIA CLERKS.

What were your favorite discoveries?

Some of my favorite "things" were exploring Flickr, a popular image hosting site, Library Thing, a way to catalog your favorite books on line, then various image generators, and learning about wikis. These discoveries are all tools that can be used daily in the media center.

Probably the most valuable tool that we all worked on as a group was our Media Clerk wiki. We each were assigned one or more of our job tasks and asked to compile a job description for that task. This tool can be used by any of the clerks as a reference to a particular task that they may have a question on. Also, our district media manager can use this compiled job description when talking to human resources about classifications and pay scales.

How will I apply what I have learned?

The students that come in to the media center constantly keep me challenged on what is out there on the Internet. I have so much more confidence about Web 2.0 things now! I may not have all of the answers and be totally proficient in an application, but at least now I know the lingo, have some Web 2.0 knowledge on how to find these web tools, and can usually help guide the student in the right direction! The students will keep me accountable!

Would I do the class again?

YES! I think the 2nd time around would be so much more relaxing and the information would sink in better! Learning and applying 23 new applications in an 11 week period seemed overwhelming at times.

What is the most important thing that you learned about yourself and working with your Personal Learning Network?

I learned that I can still absorb new information and not feel "outdated"!!

I think the best part about this class was that I got to know 12 other media clerks from this district. We got frustrated together, laughed, shared ideas, encouraged one another and really pulled together as a team of professionals for the media clerk wiki job description. It was neat to spend 11 weeks with a group of gals that all had the same type of job. We were constantly bouncing ideas off of each other of what worked in a library and what didn't, how were we going to use some of these Web 2.0 tools, etc. A wonderful experience!

What would you suggest for another topic for a Professional Study Team?

I think that we could take any of the 23 "things" from this Web 2.0 class and spend more time on them. A 1-2 week class on several "things" would just reinforce this 11 week class that was mainly an overview of the hundreds of Web 2.0 free tools that are available.

Myra continually challenged all of us to keep learning these new technology tools that are available on the Internet for free!

The journey continues.....

Thing #23 Expand your Mind

Expand your mind! Wow...my mind has really been expanded over the past 11 weeks of Web 2.0 classes!

Atomic Learning is an excellent program provided by our district for use to all of our district employees, students and their families. I hope that everyone in our district learns to take advantage of this awesome program. I am a visual learner so this site is very valuable to me! You watch a short 1-2 minute video on a particular topic for a Mac or PC. I watched the power point 2007 office video to see what tips I could learn so I could be of more help to students in the media center. A lot of teachers are requiring the students to do a power point presentation vs. a poster board for their projects.

Atomic Learning has a video for about every computer application you would need!

Office of Professional Development in our district "promotes continuous staff learning and reflection". This office offers classes for certified and classified staff. Class catalogs are available in the Winter/Spring, Summer and the Fall. Staff is able to view their personal transcript online and see their progress. So far, the 75 hours of classes that I have taken have been very useful to my work in the district. This class has been my absolute favorite! It has been the hardest and most work, but the most beneficial in my learning journey!

Thing #22 Your Cellphone as a Tool

AT&T BlackBerry® Pearl

Cellphones are owned by a large percentage of our population these days! Some families are choosing to eliminate their home phone land line and buy cellphones for all family members. You can own a "free" phone that may be offered with your calling plan or you may chose to purchase a more expensive phone like the popular BlackBerry® Pearl.

Some of the common uses of cellphones are:

• digital camera/camcorder
• text messaging/social networking
• mobile Web pages
• multimedia capabilities/emailing
• calculator/tip calculator
• mobile photo sharing
• podcasting/MP3

Can cellphones be used in the classroom? Currently, our school's policy is for students to turn off their cellphones while in the classroom and in the media center. I think that eventually almost all students will own a cellphone and they will be allowed to use their phones for some projects during class time. (i.e. podcasting, research on the web)

Teach Digital: Curriculum by Wes Fryer is a great site to check out various options of what teachers can do in the classroom with the cellphone.

Safety and etiquette should always remain a concern in the classrooms!

Thing #21 Copyright & Freedom of Information

Copyright for Teachers and School Librarians is a quick resource to many frequently asked questions about the usage of information.

The easy and quick access to information on the world wide web gives you the sense that this media is up for grabs by anyone. Teachers and students need to remember that we still need to cite authors and sources for all of our acquired facts. When we are accessing information via the web, we don't have a hard copy of a book in front of us listing the author and publisher, so we tend to assume that this Internet information does not have to be cited. WRONG! We need to acknowledge all sources for Internet photos and information and record them on our posters, reports, and power points.

Thing #20 Social Networking

Myspace and Facebook are very popular among teenagers. These two social networking sites can become very addictive. Students can hardly wait to see what their friends have posted on each others sites. Most teenagers that I know use Myspace vs. email to communicate with each other.

Safety needs to be a NUMBER ONE priority when using a social networking site. Every user should be careful when setting up their personal profile. You should not publicly post any identifiers such as your full name, your school, email or street address or city.

I did explore a variety of online social networks. I liked the Denver Public Library Myspace site. If you would give teenagers an option to check out a Myspace library site or a basic library website, Myspace would probably get the most hits, even though you may have the same information on both sites. Myspace has a huge draw to the teenagers! Within this Denver Public Library Myspace site, you can see what activities are taking place, homework help, search for books, movies and music, use databases within the site and you can post to a blog.

If media centers want to stay connected with their students, we may need to utilize the Myspace site for our postings of school media center information.

Thing #19 Microblogging with Twitter

Twitter is a simple way to communicate with your friends using very short (micro) posts about your everyday thoughts and activities. You have to stay under 140 characters so you need to be brief! Clive Thompson had an article about "How Twitter Creates a Social 6th Sense". He said that most users are between 18-27 years old. Thompson suggests that you need to personally experience this Twitter craze by trying it and doing it with friends.

How could Twitter be used in the library setting? I'm not sure that Twitter would be a good use of student time and district network time. It looks like a social network of personal events vs. a tool for doing research.

Personally, I think you need to have a lot of time on your hands to want to read all of the details about other people, even if they are your friends!

Thing #18 TeacherTube, YouTube and User-Generated Video

There are a lot of good 2-3 minute videos on TeacherTube! The one that I chose for my blog was "How Not to use PowerPoint". It is funny and very informative on some do's and don'ts when making a PowerPoint. This particular video How Not to Use PowerPoint would be good to have on the library website for students to see as a quick review before diving into their project.