Week 9--Thing 23--Reflection

Thanks, MSLA, for offering this workshop, and CSLA for making it possible. Without actually trying out the new technologies it's impossible to see how they'll work in our various settings. Without this sort of experience few of us are likely to try. It was a surprise to find that some "things" I'd imagined would be a good fit weren't, and others I hadn't considered or known about are very useful. Tagging, for example. I find myself liking it more and more, and am convinced it will change traditional library subject heading. At the very least, it lets users organize the Internet. In the surprisingly less useful category, I never warmed up to image generating, though it's a lot of fun. It's the kind of thing I would have loved several years ago. In my world now, teachers--and librarians--don't have time for this kind of extra. Maybe this will change...

Favorite discoveries were: setting up wikis, blogs, RSS feeds and news feeds, as well as the podcasting info. Without the necessity of continuing along the nine weeks I would not have explored all it had to offer. I can honestly say I probably would have only learned something about wikis and podcasting. I'd be in the dark (still) about del.icio.us, RSS feeds and LibraryThing and various other things in this class that I've been exposed to but haven't gotten around to trying.

We librarians are expected to be leaders, and the 23 Things has provided us with leadership opportunites in a very dynamic, fluid environment. There were times these last 9 weeks when the technology didn't work the way I'd anticipated or wanted, so I had to figure my work-arounds by myself. That experience will help learning the next new thing that comes along.