Thing 30: Reflection

I can't believe this class is over! It has being a very rewarding and an impactful course. As always, thank you for all the unique topics. 1: What did you learn? How did you put what you learned into action at school? Personally? Each time I take this course, I value the new tools I walk away with. It is nice to have someone sharing the best of the tools with us and having us explore them. I always feel like you save me so much time weeding through the ineffective tools already and just providing us with the best. During this session, I feel like I not only walked away with new tools, but I also walked away with a lot more. I felt like I was also provided with with a new focus. I no longer thought of the tools as resources for improving instruction, I now turned my focus to communication and professional growth. My presence in the community has grown immensely with the Facebook page that I created, the PSA announcement I made, and I just started a summer reading program that involves community members that I used Tackk.com for. In addition, I am starting my own blog that I haven't published yet, called Researching in Elementary School. As you can see, I am really taking the tools and using them beyond the walls of the classroom, which has been a very rewarding approach. The parent, community and administrative feedback has been overwhelming. I have had BOE members, teachers and parents tell me how much they love what I am doing. Before this I may have received one comment a year if I was lucky. Connecting with my stakeholders has been fantastic! Did you expand your Personal Learning Network? Make new professional connections? During this session, I felt like I did a lot more professional reading than I had in past sessions and watched a lot more slideshares and other presentations. I loved watching Karen Bosch's slideshare and I took a lot of information from Heidi Neltner's Toolkit video. I am now following both of them on Twitter. I also read a lot from Richard Byrne's and Shannon Miller who I already followed, but never really got the time to read their work with a purpose. This forced me to read their blogs and apply what I was learning right away. What challenges did you face during the workshop? As always the challenge with this workshop is time. Luckily you help us by gathering all the information, but investigating all of the information, synthesizing and sharing it is a long process. So, finding time to do it and do it well was challenging at times. However, I would do it again in a heartbeat because what I took away was practical and could be applied right away. It was well worth the impact it had on my program. What were there projects that didn’t work out well for you? I still struggle with LitTrips. I tried it and Google Earth is not as intuitive as I would like it to be. I love the potential that it has, but I think after attempting it for the third time, I am going to have to give up and just rely on other people's LitTrips. 2: What’s next? Did you start some projects that you’ll be following up on this summer and next school year? I am going to continue with my Facebook page and posting PSA's on my website. I am also going to continue working on my blog and hopefully publish it by the end of the summer. It is still hard for me to think others really care what I have to say. What other professional development projects will you be pursuing? The High School librarian and submitted a proposal for professional growth money to create a co-blog about how to create an inquiry program between two buildings. We aren't sure of the specifics yet, but we know that we will format the blog using the stages of the WISE inquiry model. We also want it to be a model for other departments to use when trying to improve the collaboration and programs between buildings. I am thankful for the sharing and learning opportunity that I have gained from this workshop because it has really helped me become a leader in my building that continues to grow beyond the workshop. Other thoughts? I would love to take this class again and do track 3. 3: Did you like learning this way? I LOVE learning this way. I think of it like the inquiry model. Yes, it is time consuming, but as a learner you are personally vested. It is self-directed and there is tons of room for choice and voice. For me the greatest part is the blogging. I am an extremely reflective person and having the opportunity to organize my thought and reflect on what I have done is extremely valuable. Thank you once again for this opportunity! It was wonderful. What a great job you have. I love this kind of stuff!