Final Questions... for this course at least..

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Date:  13 August 

What five adjectives do you feel best describe your participation in this course? What metaphor might you use to describe yourself as an online learner?  

Interested - I did enjoy the opportunity to read as much as I did in this course.  Writing the annotated bibliography in the middle was a great way to force us to read in preparation for the final research project.  I have a whole lot of material I'd still like to read as time permits..

Hesitant  - even though I enjoyed the class a lot,  I felt like the standard of the comments on the discussion board were high and that made me feel like what I had to post was perhaps less interesting - or maybe the thought that I was the only one really interested in the k12 arena made me hesitate to write exactly what I wanted as I felt a little "off" from the rest of the class.  As I got toward the end of the class, I felt a little more confident but that's also normal for me.  It's takes  while for me to fit the little pictures into one big picture and I often don't get it until the last few weeks of class - that's when the AHA moments start happening. 

Enlightened:  obviously some of the learning theories were already known to me but the review is always good, especially with the input from other students who had completely different perspectives.   Also, there were some new theories that I didn't know about and the concept of 'connectivism" really sent me off on a reading trail.  I'm not sure if that was simply because it was new, or because it really tapped into what I believe about learning and libraries.   Also - I did enjoy the websites you posted in the webliography - I had no idea there were so many learning theories out there and enjoyed reading the summaries.

Inspired:  I ended up being quite active in a few professional discussion boards with AASL and iNACOL while looking for information on librarians in virtual K12 schools.  I'm now in touch with a few other like minded individuals as a result of that search....

Questioning:  When I was growing up - my dad always said that a good course/teacher should inspire more questions than it answered.  I think that this course really made me think deeply about a lot of things and although I did find the answers to some questions, there are so many more things that I now have on my list to read/peruse and ponder.  Perhaps I veered off into my own topic of librarianship and DE at the K12 level - but there really are more questions that I want to read about.  I know now that  I'm not the only one asking the question about librarians at the K12 level in online schools - but I want to know how we're going to get the first librarian and how research can be done that will positively impact the question.  I also barely scratched the surface with the discussion of how to use web 2.0 tools in the online classroom. there are so many ways to use web 2.o tools in the classroom and I'd like to spend more time looking at how to incorporate what we are allowed to use in the online classrooms.  So many things are "banned" in the K12 arena. 

What strength(s) do you feel that you brought to this course?  How/when were those strengths exhibited?

My strengths - I know that I was challenged in this course.   I think perhaps one of my strengths is to imagine how things might be but I need to concentrate more on what is/ has been proven.  With the discussion on Augmented reality - I can really see, if given the opportunity to use it, what a great tool this might be.   I have always seen the usefulness of tools ahead of time.  I had to really fight to be able to set up a wiki 6 years ago and had my hands slapped for setting up a web site for our family support group in 2003 when the guys went off to war.   Now, the Army uses facebook.. what a change.  I always seemed to have "off the wall" questions but I'm not sure if that's a strength, a weakness or if it's just a reflection that my area of interest was so different from everyone else's?

What area(s) of weakness, if any, did you discover in your own learning?

I definitely need to be more organized with my time.  Some weeks, I managed to get to the reading quite quickly but mostly it was the weekend, which is a little late to be adding to the discussion.  I spent a lot of time reading and enjoying it but wasn't as focussed as I could have been - which meant that I ended up doing last minute work. I like to sometimes stick to the way of doing things that works.   I practiced daily writing but not on the computer - I have an old fashioned journal and write for about 10 minutes each day.  Perhaps it's better to do the journal on the computer each week but I find it better to write just as the thoughts come to my brain and then reflect on them at a later date. The reflection isn't a weakness - for me it's a necessity.  It does take longer to do it this way, but I get more out of it.  I also need to learn to write more succinctly.  I'm a very verbal person but it's important to remember that posts need to be kept very short.  It's just hard sometimes to describe what's on my mind. 

Describe one thing that you learned about yourself as an online learner through your participation.

I learned that I really enjoy the discussions when I feel like I have something to contribute.  I don't like having to write something just for the sake of having to write something as I don't want people to think I don't know what I"m talking about.  I'd much rather just read on those weeks.   I do take a long time to read about topics, not as a slow reader but because I inevitably get sidetracked looking up other articles mentioned in the first article.  

Develop a self-improvement plan for the rest of your MDE program.  

Interesting.  When I first decided to take some classes,  I signed up for the 4 class certificate program - and this should be the last of my 4 classes.  I guess it's a good comment on the classes that I am actually going to go for the full MDE, rather than be done with studying.  I do think that the 2nd Master's degree will ultimately be useful, and perhaps more so that the PhD.. which is an interesting twist.  

1.  Develop a plan to have more time for reading.  Even 30 minutes a day would help.  It shouldn't be difficult to set aside 30 minutes of uninterrupted time each day to simply read the "asides" that I tend to get lost in.

2.  Develop a plan to write for at least 30 minutes a day.   I prefer to journal with a pen and paper but that daily note-taking this semester really did help when it came to writing this journal.    Those daily reflections helped to clarify my thoughts. Actually, I had attended a "how to journal"  workshop just a few months ago and had developed the habit of daily journal writing first thing each morning with my coffee and it has really helped to keep my thoughts straight this semester.  I need to expand that from just journaling about general thoughts into a 30 minute journal about the specific courses that I'm taking.  I'm not sure I'll ever journal online -but the concept of keeping a journal in some form is definitely beneficial. 

3.  I'd like to look into Action Research in the online classroom more deeply.  If there really is a lack of research, perhaps I can start where I can.. in my own online classroom.  Developing higher level thinking skills for my students is definitely on my mind as I work on developing a new German curriculum at work. I'm also interested in how we are going to connect museums and online schools. Obviously, field trips for online schools aren't always an option (although some online schools do actually do an annual field trip) but museums can still be part of the online experience.  If our community is spending money on libraries, museums and schools, they should all be fully utilized  and there has to be a way of bringing them together in the virtual world. 

4.  Continue to develop my own professional networks within iNACOL, AASL and Linked in groups.   I found that pushing myself into new professional areas was fun and interesting.  It was good to find out that I'm not the only one interested in the area of DE and librarianship at the K12 level.