And Then We Were Done....

"Brain Storm" from iStockPhoto

Suddenly, much more suddenly than I expected, this course is now complete. However I will take away so much from this course going forward. First, this course is truly an excellent example of scaffolding and beginning with the end in mind.

Our first blog post had us brainstorming words and ideas surrounding Library and Education that interested us. I found this process to be so freeing - we could really explore whatever interested us? Some might find this too open-ended and prefer a choice of topics, but it was nice to figure out what we wanted to examine ourselves. One of my key words from my brainstorm was collaboration; I feel like I have so much to learn in teaching and in the Library world, and I know that I do not learn best on my own so I am always looking to collaborate. My desire to collaborate isn't always met with success however, so I had it in the back of my mind for my final digital artifact that I wanted to make collaboration easier. The seed was planted!

The following weeks of exploration including digging into some resources that could be helpful for the project, and examining some general topics such as Fostering Reading Culture in our schools. Through examining resources and other topics I learned about careful selection of resources, as well as how to summarize my thoughts effectively for each blog post. I think it is safe to say that I learned just as much from reading the blog posts of my peers as I did from my own posts. I appreciated how at times we would each interpret a topic so differently; sometimes we found similar resources and sometimes our resources were very complementary. I really liked the ex
perience of being able to see the learning of others as well.

I found it very helpful that we were told what our final project would be right at the beginning of the course so as we explored other topics we could keep that end goal in mind. As such it was a comment on this blog post of mine that further cemented my final project idea. A peer of mine mentioned having an online portal for the TLs in the district; what a neat idea! I loved the thought of having an online community to share, collaborate, discuss and learn from one another. I immediately contacted the district tech person to see if they could create a Moodle page for me which I would then enroll the district TLs in and we could all add some resources to. After some time I was informed that the district was no longer using Moodle but a new platform called Scholantis. Working with this new platform has been interesting. At first I was happy with the seemingly adaptable interface and pleasing appearance. For example, it was quite simple to add a new app and to organize it on the page. However, I have since encountered some glitches that have made things more difficult. This is the reality when working with new tools - a bit of a rollercoaster in progress. Sometimes things go quite smoothly and then suddenly you will encounter a road block. That is one of the main points of creating this online digital portal for the TLs in the district. All of the TLs are working with the same Library software, so it is makes sense to create a new discussion topic should a software issue arise; using the knowledge and experience of others will help us all progress.

I am so grateful that this experience has pushed me to make something of value. It would have been will see use by the TLs in the district, and I have added something else to my resume. Not to mention - I have made something that I am proud of. Thank you for the nudge to do so!

"Value" from Blog

very simple to just complete a project that means little and move on without a second thought. However, because we have been pushed to create something valuable I went the extra step to do so. It wasn't quite as simple as I made it seem in my summary above when contact the district and sorting out access to the portal. For awhile I thought that I would be making a model of the project in Google Classroom which I would then hope to transfer over at some point. I managed to persevere and have created a group page that the TLs in the district are already working with me to add more resources and material to. In doing this I have been introduced to the TLs in the district (SO valuable as a TTOC who has been on maternity leave recently...), started the online portal which