Final Week Reflections

In class two weeks ago we talked a little bit about our Twitter experiences. I was extremely surprised by how many people had negative opinions. I did too but for some reason I assumed that everyone absolutely loved it. Finding out that other people felt the same way as me made me feel a little better. I am still waiting to judge Twitter. I have not deleted my account and I have gone on a couple of times in the past few weeks. We’ll see what ends up happening. After talking about Twitter we were given a quick Elluminate walk-through, which was very helpful for doing the webinar, and time to work with it in class.

Last week my group did our webinar on Creative Commons. Overall it went very well. We had a few minor issues with audio and slides but we stayed calm and worked through it with no problem. After being on both the presenter and participant ends of webinars I have a lot more appreciation for them. They are a great interactive way to learn more information on something, without the hassle of traveling. Also, even though they aren't all that difficult, I do think I will be less picky and critical when I watch them in the future. There are so many things to keep track of and so many tiny things that can go wrong. I have to say, I can't decide if I personally like doing them. I definitely did not panic as much as for in-person presentations. It's really nice to be able to go through your notes when you lose your train of thought, instead of just standing there panicking. On the other hand, it throws me off  to have no idea if anyone is really listening. The complete silence on the other end is very strange. Pausing, especially for polls, is extremely difficult, and not something I did well in our webinar. I just wanted to fill up the silence. Overall, though, I think I have a new appreciation for webinars.

The readings for this week were about professional development. I really enjoyed the mix of school and public library articles, as well having both technological and face-to-face methods discussed. Semadini's article was about professional development in a rural school. It described the Fusion program, where teachers are in control of choosing what area of teaching they want to improve in based on both their students' needs and their own. Collaboration with other teachers is promoted and required. I think this is an interesting idea. Giving teachers' the chance to evaluate themselves and decide what area need improvement makes much more sense than assuming that everyone needs the same development in the same areas. I also think its great how excited the teachers are about it. I don't know very much about other ways teachers continue their education, so I have nothing to compare this to. Overall it seems like a good idea, though.

The other two articles described the same basic method of professional development. The Blowers and Reed article focused on teaching computer competency and Web 2.0 skills to librarians and staff at a public library, while the Fontichiaro article adapted the same basic ideas into a development program for teachers in an elementary school. I really loved the ideas and methods they described. Allowing the participants to work at their own pace and at their own comfort level is great. I hope that all libraries implement programs like this. At one library I went to there were definitely some older librarians and staff who were not at all comfortable using the computers. I cannot even imagine them using some of the more advanced technological tools. I think any library could really benefit from this. Also, I know that technology will always be changing and improving and that most of the tools I have learned in this class will someday be outdated. It makes me really excited to know that libraries plan programs like these for their librarians to help them stay current and that one day I could be participating in them. It sounds like fun!