My final thoughts

I mentioned a lot of this in my last post on Warlick and his tips for setting up and maintaining a personal learning network but, for my final post, I wanted to specify a few important things that I will take from this class.

First, I am very appreciative of Evernote and wish I would have come across this during our first semester in this program. What I love about this and all the Web 2.0 tools we discussed is that you can access it at any time or any place. I like adding to it with any new piece of information I come across. Because I will be teaching a technology class, I was constantly keeping several notebooks going at the same time this summer...one for notes from Multimedia, one for YA Resources, one for Ideas, one for Resources, one for my technology class, and one for yearbook/newspaper. It is now a "one-stop shop" for all things I need to refer back to.

As I wrote in my other post, I will continue to follow "weblogg-ed" because I think it is full of ideas, but also great talking points for our line of work. I also love Wes Fryer, Arnie Abrams, and Debbie Abilock. I want to explore Doug Johnson's work a little more. I will be glad to be able to refer back to the texts from Warlick and Richardson. I also plan to follow some of my local AEA people (I've heard Norma Thiese from Keystone has a great wiki.)

As for diigo, I immediately transferred all my bookmarks to my diigo account and now use it regularly to log in to all my accounts. I have not yet made my bookmarks public or used diigo to see what other people's bookmarks are. With a little more time, I hope to do this right away.

I thoroughly enjoyed voicethread and moviemaker and know I will use these for both personal and professional projects. Just last Thursday, I put together a movie for my economic development group that I'm involved with for my hometown. It was very professional looking and I received a lot of great comments.

Although I felt overwhelmed at many times this semester, I agree with Sandy Reishus' post that floundering a bit is part of the learning process. I've felt my confidence improve over the semester...I might not have all the answers but I feel like I can figure it out or seek help. I will continue to consult with my fellow cohort members. As Sam said during our joint cohort meeting, we will be some of the main people in the library and information science field over the next 20-30 years. What an amazing thought. I really hope I can be a person that others will look to for advice or ideas in carrying out the roles of the 21st century librarian.

In my flip video, I mentioned that I want to establish a climate of creating within the school library. I want my library to be a busy place, a place where students are engaged, and a place that they look to seek out the answers they need to be successful. To be successful, students need the 21st century skills we discussed in class. The following is a note that I wrote on my evernote page...
"21st Century Skills: Creativity & Innovation, Communication & Collaboration; Research & Information Fluency; Critical Thinking & Problem Solving; Digitial Citizenship; Technology Operations & Concepts - use this with administrator."

This was a great class. In fact, the two classes this summer were probably my two favorite classes so far...Although I was overwhelmed, I was mostly excited about all the things we were doing and discussing...thanks so much to Kristin and to everyone in the class. I just felt like we shared and learned so much from each other.