Thing 23: My Final Thoughts

Well, a summer of fun with technology is coming to a close as I complete this project and prepare for the upcoming school year. For the first time, I actually feel a little more equipped with fresh, new ideas for my lessons and programming in the library. Although some of the things we perused and played with were old hats for me, I did get an opportunity to work with some new components to add to my bag of tricks. Some of the things I know I could use immediately are Google Docs, Podcasting, Delicious (already LOVE it!), Shelfari, and some of the cool mash-up programs for enhancing my presentations and posters. I plan on adding podcasts to my library webpage as well as reading logs using Google Docs. Shelfari is already part of my personal blog and I could see using it with the students to keep track of what they're reading and also read and submit reviews. I don't think I'll use LibWorm or Twitter....just not my thing. I'm a Facebook addict...and LibWorm didn't have much on elementary school libraries. I think one of the hardest things in this project was just keeping up with all the different things...sometimes it was overwhelming and I consider myself a techie. So, if I use this with teachers, I may either lengthen the timeframe for the project OR reduce the number of things to play around with because if I got overwhelmed they will, too. All in all....this was a GREAT way for me to be exposed to more technology and refresh my memory on some pieces I'd seen, but not really used yet.