Final Reflection

What a semester!

The first thing I would like to point out is that one of the things I enjoyed the most in this class, and I am saying this with great honesty, was learning so much about my classmates. I enjoyed getting the opportunity to view everyone’s creations, reading about their trials, likes, dislikes, but most importantly their feelings of accomplishment when they succeeded at using a tool they had thought they would not master. I especially enjoyed reading about the great ideas everyone had. I was truly amazed by everyone’s creativity and for every assignment, I found myself writing notes about the new ideas that everyone shared.

The second thing I want to share is more of a confession. I have always been an advocate of technology. I am all for my students using technology in the classroom as much as they can, but as I went through the many modules for this class, I soon realized I was a big fraud. In my sixteen years of teaching experience, I have whole heartedly encouraged my students to use technology as much as they can in classroom activities, but yet, I realized I didn’t know much about it. Sure, I know the basics, but that was it. Out of the activities/topics that we covered, I can say that before we started, I was familiar with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, creating podcasts but that was it. And although I was not oblivious to the other programs/apps that we were prompted to use, I really had never worked with them. So many times I sat there thinking, how can I expect my kids to implement technology into their assignments if I do not know how to use it? I have a journal for this class in which I jotted down the different programs we used and the ideas I got from my classmates to implement lessons into the classroom. Of course, I am aware of the fact that hopefully soon (very soon) I will be able to practice as a librarian, so I also included some notes as to how I can use these tools in the library. This course was challenging on a different level, yet so enriching and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I will start with the negative experience first. Notice I said experience singular and not plural. For Module 9, I love using YouTube, and I enjoy working with it so much. Of course, that was not my struggle. Animoto, I had vaguely heard of it but had never used it. Surprisingly creating my book trailer through here was actually fun and not as complicated as I thought it would be. What kind of kicked my butt a little was using the QR codes to share my book trailer. One of my colleagues told me once that she used QR codes for a class activity and that sounded fun but I didn’t particularly understand so I was like, “Cool!” I can see how helpful QR codes are and of course I can see the high level of engagement that can come from the students should one use this for a special project. I struggled with it more than I wish I had but the good thing about this experience is that once I figured out how to share the code, I started thinking of the endless possibilities in which I could implement this in my classroom AND in the library. I probably got this idea from somewhere or someone in this class so it is not innovative at all (it is for me and my limited knowledge of QR codes though! Ha!) It is no secret that we have plenty of reluctant readers in our educational system. At the high school level there are very few students who are library “regulars” and that is kind of sad. I was thinking of maybe creating a scavenger hunt about a book in particular that will encourage all students, readers or not, to participate. I’m sure participation would start off with kids that are already library regulars but as the rest see how much fun they’re having while going around campus scanning away, AND getting prizes at the end, this will soon be an activity that more students would want to be a part of! So I suppose this “negative” experience turned into something fun and rewarding.

One thing that I have noticed during my years of teaching is that it doesn’t matter how great of a teacher you are or how much time you spend on each lesson to make sure that students “get it” because they still sometimes won’t get it. Creating tutorial videos was pretty great because of that! I think that there are two useful tools that we can use either as educators or librarians to help with this. So the two tools that I find beneficial for students are Screencasts and Podcasts. I had never used screencasts and although I was familiar with Podcasts because I used them for a previous class, I HATE, absolutely HATE how my voice sounds so I was felt a bit uncomfortable making them. I did my first screencast thinking that I would NEVER in my life be interested in making more because of that same reason. Well the screencast I created, one of them, anyway, was guiding students through the databases that are available in our district for their research needs. The podcast I created was explaining the difference between a report and a research paper. These tools came in handy because I was able to share them with my students as we started the research paper project. I was a bit reluctant to share it with them, but it is something that they found useful and were NOT critical at all. Granted I didn’t have them create one, but they had the opportunity to learn from them. And of course, my brain is geared towards making lessons happen as a teacher, but we all know that these can be very easily applied as a librarian because well, we all also know that librarians ARE teachers. In Module 9 we had to look at several Library YouTube Channels and I saw how many librarians used these tools to implement into their library pages. Isn’t that great? I really liked that idea. And of course, additional tutorials always are helpful for students. And if we are thinking, how can they help the students as creators? Well, simply enough, they can create their own Podcasts and screencasts based on information they are learning in their classes. They can have debates, book talks, how to do science experiences, and yes, how to use a tool on the Internet. I am sure they would have fun creating these projects and would benefit from them.

I honestly enjoyed working with every single tool that we learned about. I liked implementing literary projects to Instagram and thought the same could be done for Twitter where you analyze characters through pictures and posts. I used to do a MySpace project for one of the books that my kids read, Lord of the Flies, where students were tasked by creating a MySpace page on one of the characters and in order to do this, they had to really know the character. The students had fun and they loved it because they got to experiment with becoming another person. Unfortunately, I had to do away with this project when MySpace became no longer cool. I have used Facebook as a means of having group talks and question/answer based discussions but nothing has been as fun as that MySpace project. So because this activity brought me back to my MySpace years, I was excited to think of various ways to implement Instagram to the classroom. Creating cartoons was also so much fun. I must confess though that I, as a creator of cartoons, do not have much patience so I definitely need MORE practice. I did have fun creating them and the fact that this assignment sparked my creativity was even better and of course it can be extremely beneficial to both students, teachers, and librarians. I can see myself using this in the classroom while having students do satirical recreations of scenes from material we have read in the classroom. As a teacher, I can create these as reminders on grammar usage or class rules and such, and most importantly, as a librarian, I can use these cartoon as reminders on steps they must follow while using an Internet tool, or procedures as far as checking out and returning books, late fees, and such. The implementation of creating YouTube videos and Animoto is something that really excited me. For example, as a librarian, I can have a book club and have students create an Animoto video or a YouTube video of a book trailer. I can post them on the Library’s either Facebook page or Twitter page so that other students can vote for their favorite one and perhaps give the top three places prizes. This idea is so exciting! And I can’t wait to implement it! And as strange as this is, the tool that gave me the biggest headache comes in as a top contender for my most favorite tool to use! Yes, the QR code! I mentioned it earlier and with this, I would love to create monthly scavenger hunts that will get students (geared towards reluctant readers) to become interested in the reading aspect of great stories so that they can win a prize at the end. I feel this a great tool to make reading fun.

I am aware and as a realistic person, I think it would take some time to implement all of these ideas into the library and I must start with baby steps, but I do know that with patience and determination, this will be done, and with the more practice I acquire, the easier it will all become. I do feel very passionate about this profession and at this point, my biggest fear is that I will not find a job soon. But this will give me time to continue planning and continue looking for great ideas to optimize the use of the library and librarian in what will be the best of my abilities. Hopefully soon!