Thing 23

Oh my goodness, I am so excited to have made it! I love this course. I have actually sent it to my mom and all of my aunts so that they may become technology savy as well. I have also been talking about it to some of my friends and a few have requested I send it to them.

My favorite discoveries..oh, so hard to narrow it down. One was the image generators because I feel eager to try to get my students to use them in their poetry study. Also, they were just plain fun. I plan to share these with my friends. I was also really happy to discover Rollyo. This may have been my favorite for school purposes because I was literally looking for something just like this in the spring. I also found Delicious very helpful. I plan to use this a lot now too.

This program has assisted my lifelong learning goals because I have discovered so many new things that I certainly wouldn't have otherwise. Isn't that what lifelong learning is about?! I found many useful tools and I feel I have a wealth of new knowledge and resources to share with others (colleagues, family and friends). I was just thinking to myself yesterday about how I couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to do this program. To be introduced to great tools and to try them out for free, all from the comfort of wherever you want...sounds great to me! I was so busy this summer, as we all are, and am so happy I challenged myself to learn new things when I could just be vegging out in the little free time I did have.

I was honestly surprised at how much I learned and how eager I was to learn it. I am always excited to learn new things, but I wasn't exactly sure how this program would go. I was so pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was. Moreover, I was surprised at how easy everything (pretty much) was. Also, it was fun to engage in an online community of learners through our blogs and comments. I liked sharing the process with others though we might be miles apart or working at different times. Our lunch at Corner Bakery was fun too in order to share that human interaction that makes learning together all that much more meaningful.

The program's format and concepts were great. I think it was easy to follow, but still challenging enough to stay engaged and to learn. I liked the variety of resources but also the amount that was selected. There are so many online tools out there that I thought the program did a fabulous job of exposing us to many without feeling overwhelming. One suggestion I do have is to introduce Delicious at the very beginning of the program, so that it may be used all along to tag the fabulous sites. Sure you can go back and do it, but it would be so much easier if you could tag the ones you like from the beginning.

I would certainly participate in another discovery program! This was a great opportunity. Next time though, maybe I won't be in Peru for the first half of the summer so I will get started earlier.

INSPIRING

23 Things is a complex, yet simple, program that has inspired me to use my new found resources to improve teaching and learning in my class.