Monday, August 24, 2009

Thing #23 -- Thoughts and I wish this wasn't the last!


Must all good things must come to an end? I just read that Lawrence Lessig's blog is ending. I was interested in his discussion of "socialism" and the Internet, a term he does not endorse. I did not want to post this last Thing because it meant that I have finished the course. Really, the truth is that this has shown me how much I have to learn and need to explore further.
I wasn't sure what the Discovery Exercise meant about an example or attribution that shows this program has been modified from its original.
My favorite discoveries were many -- flickr, LibraryThing, image generators, but mainly blogging itself. Blogging has replaced the content in newspapers in many ways since newspapers, in my view, are the product of their owners and not a free press. I like that I am able to subscribe to many blogs through RSS feeds, as well as newspapers, tweets, and anything else. So much was enjoyable in terms of extending my knowledge of Internet tools, I believe I have barely scratched the surface. I wish in some ways that my job had not been cut so that I could introduce all this to my colleagues. I am hoping my district will undertake using this and classroom learning 2.0.
Because I am now retired I hope to make use of all these tools to further my desire to create histories of people who have been written out of our history books. My parents and their friends contributed to a better world back in the 1930's and 40's but their stories have never been told. I hope to write them to appeal to young people, so they know there are people who were willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good. Additionally, I will be finding all the new books I need to read by referring to many of the sites I found during this course.
Surprises -- everything was surprising! But in actual fact, the surprise was that the turtle could learn enough and at a pace that allowed me to finish. If I couldn't do something one way, I often found another. And this slow learner knows there is so much more to learn, but now looks forward to doing so.
Please, please, please do offer another course like this. In just the few years you have been teaching School Library Learning 2.0 there have been so many changes. I would like to see some of the links updated if that's not too much.
One sentence: Twenty-first century learning involves so much more than the passive intake of information on the part of the learner, and allows the learner to create, change, and evaluate the learning environment.
Not the best, but certainly a begining!
(P.S. The turtle image is from www.mcsuk.org/marineworld/turtles/help+turtles+in+west+africa )

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations on successfully completing CSLA's School Library Learning 2.0. You are now an official member of the CSLA 2.0 Team! Your blog has been moved over to the "Congratulations! 2.0 Team" list in the sidebar.

    Glad you enjoyed the discovery learning adventure. We hope you will share what you've learned and also register for and promote the next tutorial, "Discovering Assistive Technology" at http://DiscoveringAT.blogspot.com.

    Best wishes in "retirement" -- I'm retired and have never been busier or more engaged with good people and fun tech tools.

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  2. Congratulations, Joan! You did a fabulous job with the tutorial. I loved reading all your comments about what you were learning. The one thing you have wrong is about the pace at which you learn. Clearly, you are NOT a slow learner. Please continue to share all your wisdom with all of us in the library and education world.

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