The Final Vision Project and Reflection

Here I am at the end.  Or the beginning, I guess.  It's a good but nerve-wracking feeling!

I started this course with just a vague sense of what a teacher-librarian is and each week as I explored our assigned topics and read the posts of my peers, I learned more and more.  And the amazing part, to me, was that each new thing I learned made me feel assured that I have chosen the right path to be on at this time in my life.  I am up to the challenge of learning the technology, doing the work, and sharing it with others.

The most important elements of the course that I will take with me are the connections that I have made with other teacher-librarians, a growing understanding of how I can use Twitter to my benefit as a teacher, and the encouragement to really embrace the concept of being a lifelong learner.  When you are taking a course, reading articles, and blogging about your learning, it really keeps you motivated to be a catalyst for change.  And really, there are so many technologies that I have learned about and used this term that I am thankful for: Digg reader, Symbaloo, PowToon, etc.

And speaking of change, I started my new 40% position as a teacher-librarian last week.  I am excited and hopeful for the ideas that I can bring to this school.  I am hoping that my continued connections with my PLC and my growth-mindset will tide me over as I continue to take LIBE courses one at a time while working.  :)

To remind you, I created this partly for administration but also to be able to use as an intro on my [new] blog as I start working in this new position as the teacher-librarian at TLA.  Who will be reading this new blog?  Hopefully, parents and other staff alike!  This is my audience.  I think that sharing my intended direction with the TLA community will help me stick to my plans.

Without further ado:
(I see it's partially covered by my sidebar so feel free to 
click HERE)


Do you ever spend all kinds of time on something only to discover it's been done and done better than what you've created?  Haha.  On Sunday, I had that video above completed but part-way through, I write "More on that later" in regards to developing the online learning commons.  So I wanted to do more - a "part two" to my introduction video that fleshed out what a learning commons really is.

Yesterday, I spent all day (much to my 4 year old's chagrin) working on "part two" and halfway through, I discovered such a great PowToon video that said exactly what I was trying say!  Well, I will literally just show this other person's wonderful video to our admin.  My "part two" video was beginning to branch into a more personal description of my ideas for my school's space/website but I need to put more research into what I think we need in an online learning commons before I can continue on. And really, I just need to get the above project shared!  Like I said in my previous post, you can just keep going and going!

So essentially, my final project was my introduction to my vision video above.  But so as to not leave you hanging, I'm willing to share my "project : part two" unfinished product to give you an idea of how I spent my time today.


or the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaF9s7xH1hc&rel=0

Thanks to all you, Bears, who have commented and been great inspiration.  I hope you continue to blog and/or tweet as I will be following!  Thank you, to Mr. Mueller -  I appreciate your time, punctuality, clear guidelines, and feedback.  When I get my TLA TL blog up and running, I will post the link here for anyone who wants to add it to their Digg reader!  :)

Late but not forgotten: Final Vision Project Contents - aka. the big F.A.I.L

I'm not sure this will even "count" for marks as I am over a week late with this assignment but I've been working on my final project for days and need a blog break!

image from: https://mmcgrat4.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/meme-project-revised/

I had this great idea for creating an action plan/rationale/proposal and then I got stuck.  What am I even trying to say?  What do I even know about this?  It was great to chat a bit about it with my instructor which guided me to start creating more of an introduction to me.  This way, the digital artifact could be used on my library blog or the school website, introduce families to me, but also lay out some of the things that I would like to do in the next year or so.  This shifted in my potential audience.  His other reminder was that things take time.  I can't do it all, immediately.  Ahh, yes.

I tend to avoid things that I don't know how to start.  Because really, how am I going to make this introduction?  My first thought was PowerPoint.  Haha.  I'm old.  It's what I know.  I thought I could use Jing to be able to talk throughout the presentation.  Now, thinking about this again, it's not a bad idea but I had this thought that I needed something fancier.  I downloaded Haiku Deck on my iPad and created a title page.  I signed up for projeqt but wasn't sure if that was quite the right medium for what I wanted to do.  After feeling overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge of these programs and my lack of direction in the project, I walked away.  I went and wrote report cards.  I dealt with MyEdBC instead of a new technology.
 
And then I came back.  I had my first training day at our resource centre with our current librarian and got a taste of what is currently happening there.  I had lunch with one of the tech guys and discussed ideas for the project's medium.  He introduced me to Zoom.us which is a video-conferencing tool like a Hangout or Blackboard but you can record yourself talking alone if you're wanting to make a video like that.  I thought that maybe I could use this as my tool but left it by the wayside as I didn't think I wanted to be on camera the whole time for this.  So where do I go for inspiration when I need ideas?  My LIBE477 colleagues!  I started checking out your final project blog posts (because you're all always on time and I'm always late!  Augh.).  I loved how PowToon looks for Jackie's Collaborative Inquiry project and was like, "Yes!  This is what I want to use!"


Thankfully, PowToon is pretty user-friendly.  It has some similarities to PowerPoint in the way that it's set up as slides which of course, I loved.  Haha.  But I got in there and came to a halt.  What was I even writing about?  Here were the notes that I was working from:

Yes - there is no paper in my house that does not have marker all over it.  Haha.  (#howyouknowyoulivewithkids) 

I went to Word and began a simple document.  YES!  This is always where I need to start.  I brainstormed, made an outline, THEN moved back over to PowToon.
 
Now, as I am just finishing up the project, I'm realizing that it could possibly be NEVER finished. Did anyone else find this?  Technically, I could keep going forever: editing, adding, etc.  At some point, I'm going to be so late on it that I will just have to turn it in as is.  And I think that day is today. We'll see where I'm at by 3pm today.