Method 12--Reflection and Evaluation

The last step--reflecting on the experience.

Q: What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

A: I had several Aha! moments during this class, including:
*The Computing in the Cloud segment introduced me to GoogleDocs, where I found a lot of useful tools.
*Learning to skin and embed a video was fun, and I got to make my Daddy happy by posting a video of his Men’s Chorus. That one thing made the whole class worthwhile for me.
*I didn’t know that there were programs like Meebo that allow subscribers to chat.
*I spent some time exploring PB Wiki so that I feel comfortable trying to set up a library wiki at school.
*I discovered the “Edit HTML” tag on Blogger. I’ve done blogs before and never used it.

Q: How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

A: I have some new tools and ideas for improving my library and making information more accessible to my students.

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

A: I am now a Facebook addict. That was a surprise. I knew about it, but didn’t know how much fun it was. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but there it is. I am always surprised at how many tools are available on the Internet.

Q: What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

A: The format is great for me. I can read and reread as much as I need to and spend as much or as little time as I need to on a given topic. If all of this information were crammed into a one-or two-day workshop, it would be overwhelming. Many times I have been to workshops where, by the time they were over, I was completely overloaded with information. I like being able to read and then think, digest, and play with the new ideas before moving on.

One thing that I would like to see is a forum where participants could chat. I think that would be helpful and would allow participants to help each other by answering questions that come up.

Q: And last but not least… If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?

A: Yes, I would definitely take another class like this. It is convenient and packed with good information. I appreciate the opportunity provided by TSLAC. I would love to have a refresher course/helpful hints on cataloging.

This has been an interesting and useful course. I am really glad that I signed up and went through all of the Methods. Some of the exercises covered topics that I knew a little about or had heard of, but having the opportunity to learn more about them and practice with them was very helpful. I spent more than the twelve hours that the introduction suggested, but that was because I spent a lot of time exploring and playing with the tools that were mentioned. It was a very worthwhile experience.

Method 11--The Wide World of Podcasting

The title of this step is very appropriate because the world of podcasting is a wide world. I knew about podcasting—I’ve even created one (see previous posting)—but I had no idea how many topics are covered or how easy podcasts are to access. I found lots that would be useful to me as a librarian, useful for my students, or just fun.

I looked at a lot of the podcast sites mentioned in the Dozen Ways lecture notes, but mostly at iTunes, since I already had it downloaded onto my computer. I had never even looked at the podcast store before. I found lots of things that look like they will be interesting and useful. There were several that I thought would be good for the students at my school. I especially liked the podcasts that are about vocabulary development. Since these students will be taking the PSAT, SAT, and/or ACT before too long, anything that will improve their vocabulary is a good thing.

Two of the podcasts that I looked at were called A Way with Words and Just Vocabulary. Both of them had good information, but the podcasts were long and would take so much time that not many students would be willing or able to devote that much time to them.

The podcast that I think would be most useful for my students is called Podictionary. It talks about word meanings and origins. The podcasts are short and entertaining, and there is a website with the script for each day’s episode. Podictionary is also available on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube. The only negative is that the podcasts are sponsored, so there is a commercial in each one, as well as on the website, but it is not really too disruptive.

Click on the icon below to see the Podictionary website.

Ideas from several places came together in my head last week and I decided to investigate the possibility of posting podcasts on my library website. My principal agreed that it is worth looking into. I want to collaborate with the speech/drama teacher and the business (computer) teacher to have students create podcasts of booktalks about books that they would like to recommend to other students. I think that word-of-mouth would be an excellent way to advertise the library’s collection.

Bonus Podcasts

This is a podcast that I created last year in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a class I was taking from Texas Woman's University. It is a booktalk on the book 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper.

And this one features Diana Gabaldon talking about the writing process and her new book An Echo in the Bone, which I have bought, but can't start reading until I finish these Dozen Ways to Two-Step!

And Now for Something Completely Different....

Totally off the subject and just for fun!

Created June 2009 at Walt Disney World's Spaceship Earth

Method 10--This Wiki World

Wiki pages are another tool that I have known a little about, but not really used very much. I had a principal one time who used Wiki to get teacher input into creating a mission statement for the school. At that time, I knew so little about Wiki (and I was so new on the campus) that I didn’t participate. Now I can see what a useful tool that would be. Instead of everyone editing and emailing their revisions, everything is in one place and accessible to anyone. Changes and edits can be tracked easily.

I enjoyed looking at all the examples of how libraries are using Wikis. One that I thought could be really useful is Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. It seems like a good place to share ideas that really work in libraries.

One Wiki page that made me laugh was the 2009 Annual ALA Wiki. The reason? It has a page entitled “Events with Food.” That just struck me as funny—not that I wouldn’t be tempted to take advantage of it.

Anyway, looking at all of the Wikis and reading about all of the ways they can be used has inspired me to try again to really develop and use a library Wiki. I have started on it and plan to use it to let teachers sign up to bring classes into the library, reserve equipment, request books, and share with each other what resources they are using for particular assignments. I think it could be a real time-saver and a good way to collaborate.

PS—I’m not at all sick of the “In Plain English” tutorials. I agree that they are very good. Lots of good information in an easy-to-follow format. Besides, I love how the guy uses his hands to show “old way bad” and “new way good.”

Method 9--Chat and Instant Messaging

Image source: http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Politics-of-Social-Organizations

Chat (instant messaging) is not really a new thing for me. I do not use it a lot, but I am familiar with it. My first experiences with online chats were in the summer of 2007. I was taking an online class and one of the ways that the professor presented information was through live chat sessions. During the days before the chat, he would announce the date and time of the chat and students would sign in to participate. He would answer questions and give us opportunities to practice the new cataloging skill that we had just learned. I enjoyed the chats and learned a lot from them. The frustrating thing was that it was sometimes hard to keep up with which answer went with which question since sometimes several people would respond at the same time. Still, it was a good way to interact.

Recently I have chatted mostly on Facebook. I like it because it is a real-time conversation and a way to stay connected to people. I chat with people who live here in town and with people who live far away, and feel equally connected to all of them. I still like phone calls because I can hear my friends’ voices, but chatting is a good alternative—and it’s free and easy to do. The only difficulty is that it’s pretty much a chance conversation. My friends and I have to be on Facebook at the same time to chat with each other.

I really don’t see a problem with using chat/IM on a library website. I think that anything that helps library patrons get the information they need is a good thing. Even though I don't use chat in my library right now, I can see where it would be useful because it would allow students to ask questions even if they were on another computer in school—or at home. Here at school, students would not be able to chat from a cell phone since they are not supposed to have phones at school. As part of this unit, I looked at the Meebo site. I like the idea of students and staff being able to ask questions directly from the library website. As the lecture notes stated, having IMers add the library to a buddy list is a good way to develop and maintain a connection between the library and its patrons.

It seems that there are a lot of ways that a library could benefit from chatting with patrons. I hope that I can work out a way to try it sometime soon.