I still cannot believe how fast the week went- time really does fly! Now that class has been finished for nearly two weeks, I feel that I can truly look back and reflect on all that I learned. I have never had so much fun in class before. I absolutely loved exploring each of the new tools we learned and cannot help but keep thinking of several different ways I can incorporate these tools into my lessons. This class is one of the most, if not the most, practical and useful classes I have taken to prepare me to be a 21st century librarian. This is not saying anything negative about previous classes or others I will take, but learning about these tools or how and where to find out about new ones is hugely beneficial for me. By the time I begin teaching some of these tools might be passe but I know that I can go to Buffy Hamilton's or Joyce Valenza's blog and find out about new tools or whats coming next. Prior to this class, I had little knowledge or experience with most of the tools. I had to start from scratch but I think that was what made it so valuable. I had to learn to use the tool and then create something worthwhile with it and that is exactly what my students will be doing. I can understand their frustrations and personal victories with the tools because I had to overcome many a hurdles to understand a few of the tools or to get them working properly! As someone with experience working with special education students, I am already thinking of how to incorporate these tools into my lessons to differentiate instruction for all types of learners and learners on all different levels. When I began this class, I was very worried that I was not going to be able to keep up or even understand everything we were going to learn. However, I learned that most of these tools are user friendly and it is not as hard as it seems to create something unique, fun and interesting. For my final project, I decided to try Prezi. I have seen a few Prezi presentations and heard that it was a little tricky to use at first. I can personally attest to that statement-it is tricky! I think it took me longer to figure out how to use it and how to get it to look the way I wanted it to look then it did for me to write up the actual presentation. But this tool, like all the others, showed me that it is possible to use these tools proficiently, that some are harder to use than others and that different tools would be appropriate for different learners. But, the greatest lesson I learned is that it takes time and patience to learn these tools. The more time I spent with the tool, the more I learned. I found new features that I did not know about simply by playing with the tool.
As I look back at my first assignment, I realize that I had the right attitude about the 21st century librarian but almost none of the tools to be the librarian I knew I wanted to be. After taking this class, I now feel ready. Just like I stated above, I know that some of tools I learned will be replaced by a newer, cooler tool or will become passe, but I know where to go to find out about new and upcoming tools. I had seen the AASL Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning and had briefly explored the tools mentioned. I look back at the same list and realize that I did a poor job the first time around. I had looked at the sites but until this class, I had not really learned anything about them! I will use JogTheWeb as an example. I quickly glanced at the site and thought it was interesting but did not try it out. I tried to use it for one project in this class and I ran into some trouble. I learned that I liked the site for certain types of projects but that it was not the right tool for the task at hand. This makes me think of Karen Kliegman's (my professor) statement on tools: tools are simply tools unless we have some educationally-sound justification for using them. I would have simply suggested its use without really knowing about the tool prior to this class. Although JogTheWeb is a great tool, it was not a great tool for my project. I could not use that tool to create a truly educational lesson because it would have made the lesson far too complicated. I now know that I would use JogTheWeb but that is only appropriate for certain projects. This is just one example of using the tools for appropriate educational purposes. I also now know who the go-to people in my field are and how to find out about what they are doing and why.
I would love to use every single Web 2.0 tool that we learned about however, I do not know if this is yet possible. I do know that I need to explore several of the sites in more depth before I would suggest them to my students. I cannot possibly list all the ones that I would recommend or why I would recommend them. I do know that I will continue to follow the suggested bloggers to keep up-to-date in the field along with their twitter feeds and wikis. I cannot wait to further explore Google+ and to see how it grows. I plan on learning more about Twitter to see if it is something I will really use. I do know that I will eagerly introduce my students to: Glogster, Wordle, Tagexdo, Mixbook, PhotoPeach, Animoto, Photostory, Flickr, LiveBinders and many more. I want to teach them how to blog and how to create their own website. I liked blogging and how to continue to do so in the future. I know that I will (or fight for the opportunity to)blog for my students but I would love to blog for my colleagues. Self-reflection is a powerful tool and blogs are a great way to do that reflection. I would like to share my accomplishments and my defeats so that others can learn from my mistakes or try to incorporate a successful lesson of mine into their own library. My priority is to student learning. By learning from others and sharing my own experiences, I will become a better educator.
