Thing 12:Final Reflection

I decided that it would be important this year to do the final reflection since I worked hard on completing 10 items this year. I feel the having a final reflection is important this year to help keep everything I've done straight and to note what I have been able to continue on with throughout the year and what I hope to use in the fall.

1: What did you learn? This year I chose to complete 9 items plus the final reflection. I thought it would be best to complete more items this year and really dive into the learning activities provided. There were a few activities that I have completed in the past but I found new aspects to look at this year such as Thing 5. While at SSL I was introduced to Buncee and I really wanted to explore that more. I also learned that Twitter isn't as "scary" or "overwhelming" as I thought. Overall I feel that this year I was able to dive into more topics and really discover new ways to better myself in the library. 
How did you put what you learned into action at school? I will be using Buncee in the fall with one of my collaborative classes. I have also discovered the many uses of Google Keep and I will be using that more in the future for both school and home.I also hope to show some of the students fotojet, and many of the apps that I looked at. I'm very interested in looking at using seesaw for my elementary students. I'm looking forward to implementing new projects and trying out new media next year with my students.  Personally? I have been using Google a lot more both at work and at home- I will be using Google Calendar and Google Keep a lot more in the future.
What challenges did you face during the workshop? I felt that this year I was able to fully manage my time better and submit pieces throughout the year as opposed to at the very end. So although this was not a challenge I faced I did want to mention that I feel like I was better able to manage time and do more thorough work this year. 
Other thoughts? My job changed this year to where I was part time in a school district and part time at our media library at the BOCES.  I found that this set up was fantastic for me and I was able to really dive into pieces of this workshop more. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity through my BOCES to participate in this program each year. This is my third year and I'm happy to say I could finally complete ten lessons. Every year I've been trying to complete ten but struggle with hitting five and I'm happy that this year I had the time to do all ten that I wanted to do. I hope to have the same opportunity next year. 

2: What’s next? Are you planning to share what you’ve learned with others? I will definitely be sharing out some of the products I explored. I'm most excited about Buncee but I also want to show teachers how I will have my library calendar set up on Google in the fall. I am hoping to pull in more teachers this year and really dive into projects with the students. I think it is best for students to learn through collaborative projects and what better way to do that then show them teachers collaborating. I'm hoping to be able to collaborate more and branch out from my three normal teachers and pull in a few more. Fingers are crossed :-) 
What other professional development projects will you be pursuing? I continue to attend any and all conferences made available to me. I am hoping to apply for a scholarship for AASL this year and travel to Phoenix (but we will see). I'm also hoping to attend workshops to become better involved with the new science standards along with reading and writing programs going on in schools. My summer is booked up with teaching summer school however, I do have a few PD items scheduled for the summer. 

3: Did you like learning this way? For some of you, this might have been your first experience with this kind of independent, self-driven learning. Did this work for you? What did you most value about the program? What didn’t work well? Would you do it again? Other thoughts? This is my third year participating in Cool Tools and I absolutely love it. I have always loved participating in this program since I was first introduced to it. I find it to be a great resource and I love that I can go back and find the information again to continue exploring. I also love that many of the things remain the same you just update them as the technology changes so you can go back to the thing and dive in deeper and learn more about it. This I feel is one of the most beneficial pieces to the workshop. You're not pigeon holed into one topic you can choose topics that best suit the needs of you, your faculty and the students. So I will definitely continue to participate in this workshop until it is no longer available at my BOCES. Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to this program!! 

Thing 5 Presentation Tools

I completed this activity last year but there are so many presentation tools out there that I decided to do this one again.
I am super excited about this topic this year because while attending SSL this year in Buffalo I attended Mike Drezek's presentation Oh the Places You'll go... And this presentation was shown to us via Buncee! What a fantastic program! I completely fell in love with the presentation and what the program allows you to do.  I also love how interactive it is and when I came home I created an account just to try it out and see if it really was that simple. AND... It is! I'm so looking forward to the fall now when I can introduce one of my classes to this program and use it to create presentation.

I created a very simple and easy Buncee so it could be shared out in our SLS- Booktalk Weekly. The presentation is only 5 slides so that the other librarians and members that read the Booktalk Weekly will be able to get a glimpse of the program. I added a background, an interactive and a sticker along with the text so I could show the different ways to use the program. I found this program to be very simple and easy to use and I feel that it would be a perfect program to use with 7th graders during one of their science projects that I collaborate on. I am looking forward to exploring this tool more and if there is enough interest I may even buy one of the memberships so I can continue to use the wonderful world of Buncee.

https://app.edu.buncee.com/buncee/acf15bfcae134cbcbb2a9be36c854ce5

I will definitely be demoing this at upcoming meetings along with showing it to the teacher at my school.
I am very glad that I chose to go to this workshop at the conference and learn about Buncee. Matt also introduced us to other tools as well but they were more about collaborating with other schools, teachers, librarians and more via the Internet. Newer tools to use other than just Skype.

So I will definitely be using Buncee more in the future. I feel sad that I didn't really learn about this until the end of the year when it won't really be beneficial to introduce it to anyone because many people already have summer on the brain

Thing 41 Anything Goes Google

After attending a few conferences/workshops this year where the seating was particularly well thought out  I decided that I needed some type of device that was light-weight and easy to use. I began searching for an ideal device to use as my laptop is a 15 inch laptop (this is my main work computer for BOCES and Morristown). I was debating on a tablet of some kind but I too like to have a keyboard every once in a while. So my supervisor and I went on the hunt for a device that not only had a keyboard attached to it, but it could also go into tablet mode if the area was not well suited for a fully functioning device. We found the Acer Chromebook R11. This device is light-weight, can be a tent, or tablet along with a normal laptop. Best of all it is a Chromebook so it will sync all of my data and information between devices. I have been playing around with the device a little bit at work this week but I will be testing it out fully at SSL this weekend. 😀
So far I have been using Google Docs on it which I have used in the past but it is nice to see how they are synced so easily and readily available with the docs pinned to the shelf. I have been trying out Google Keep this week- I am very much a list oriented person and so far I find it useful.
I will be trying it out at the conference to see how I adapt to taking notes online as opposed to handwriting them all and then typing them up once I'm home.
I look forward to having a way to do things online and quickly that way I don't have to type everything once I'm home. I have set up a folder and documents for SSL already to make is that much quicker for me while I'm there.

I have also started using Google calendar heavily after attending a Google Summit in the fall and learning about the different ways to use Google calendar and allow for it to really help keep things in perspective. I use it for my library in Morristown so I can share with the staff members which days I'm district and what is going on in the library. It has been very useful when collaborating with teachers and I can put it right on the calendar and they are invited to the event. I still very much keep my hand planner to help keep track of the two locations I'm in along with my personal appointments and such but I find the Google calendar works wonders for school. I have found this calendar to be useful for so many events and activities at school. I am co-adviser on year book so I was able to plug in the meeting times and share out with the students as well as my co-adviser.

Now that I have a chromebook for workshops and conferences I look forward to learning new tools on Google and making them more a part of my career. I use Google drive on my "normal" laptop on a regular basis so I look forward to expanding the knowledge as I progress.

If you're at SSL look for the fluorescent orange case and that'll be me :-)