Sunday, January 13, 2008

THE FINISH LINE - SUMMARY

This posting represents a summary of the completed project that began last October. I still remember the ovewhelmed feeling and tears I had at that time when I couldn't get equipment to work at home or at school. Then once I got wireless at home, this made working at home possible and pressure was taken off me staying at school to get assignments done. Then, like everyone else, frustration continued when logins became increasingly impossible and error messages and then overrides that drove everyone insane. But, persistence paid off and we continued on working through the 'things' and fixing the wrongs that popped up week after week.
Looking back, I think I enjoyed the Avatar assignment the most although I didn't realize it at the time ! I would like to go back and play with it some more later. Another fun assignment that probably took me the longest to do was the Animoto assignment. This was really fun although very short for the amount of time it took to do it. Kids would love to see the product of their work in this cool site. I was probably the most amazed at my work on this website.
This program has opened my eyes and opened my laptop to an amazing world of technology that I never knew existed. So much of it I am just not interested in at this point in my life, but I am glad to be aware of what is there for those who are using these tools in their life. I am not afraid to move around the web and explore new sites as I once was, so this has been a real growing experience for me.
I was totally overwhelmed at the volume and variety of information out there just in the few sites we dabbled in. There is probably nothing you could not 'get into' if you wanted to ~ daunting at best.
Whether this assignment is done at home or at school, something else is getting neglected ~ books shelved, repaired, ordered, ILL's, teacher requests, etc., family responsibilities. Therefore, I would not choose to participate in a program of this magnitude again. It was just too overwhelming and always 'hanging over my head'. When I would have the time to relax, I really couldn't because I knew this assignment was due and I needed to get it done, so it was very stressful in that way. It probably could have been 23 staff developments over the next 4 years done in class !
I certainly feel much more knowledgeable about the world of technology now and hope to definitely use some of the things we explored to make my life easier and more 'collaborative' with my friends and co-workers !

5 comments:

Library Magic said...

The amount of work was tremendous for sure. I am glad we did it because I don't think I would have ever explored many of these sites otheriwse. I would liked to have had more time though because it was so time consuming.

mmw said...

Congratulations on making it to the Finish Line. You've done a great job and learned a lot! Thanks for making the journey with us.

learninglou said...

It wasn't always easy, but it was fun. Most of us would not have done this with out it being required.

CoolLibrarian said...

I could not agree more. I felt all emotions possible, frustrated, sad, overwhelmed, happy, elated, and proud. This reminds me of how students feel when learning something new. Besides all of the cool technology things I learned, I remembered that learning is a process and not just a destination.

rileyreader said...

It was so good to read your summary and talk to you in person about the struggles we all went through to finish the project. It is so great to be done!