Week 9 Thing 23

Attribution on the site: Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program created by Helene Blowers. Content and style for School Library Learning 2.0 and Classroom Learning 2.0 have been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.

Summary of Thoughts:
1. What I liked best - I loved the music resources that I found and the Flickr mashups. I'm hooked on Pandora and I plan to start using Flickr with friends across the country.

2. The program has made me more proactive about searching out new tools that I can use with my students. I ended up accepting a request to join a progressive technology group to help create and drive the technology initiatives in my district in the hopes that I can share what I've learned and can continue to stay with or ahead of the curve with technological advances that I can use in my classroom.

3. I was surprised at just how much was out there that I didn't know about. There are so many new tools that I was completely oblivious to; tools that I would probably have never found on my own.

4. I liked the format of the course. One suggestion would be to require students to follow the blogs of a few others taking the course at the same time, just to expand on what they are learning on their own.

5. I would absolutely participate in another program like this!

6. Awww, come on! One word or one sentence to sum up that many weeks of work? Seriously? I'm not that concise. Expansive. Experiential. Creative. Mind-boggling. Educational. I could go on and on.

Week 2, Thing 3

Lifelong Learning
I think that by being a teacher, you are by nature a lifelong learner. I learn things from my students constantly, even when it's inadvertent. Especially when it comes to technology - I probably wouldn't even know about half of the new stuff out there if I hadn't heard about it or been shown it by a student. Sure, it makes me feel really old sometimes when a 12 year old looks at me like I'm an idiot for not knowing something, but then when you show it to someone else you get to look like a tech wizard (which, while being about the furthest thing from the truth, isn't necessarily a bad thing for others to think...)

Anyway, totally off topic there. The habit I have the biggest problem with is definitely to view problems as challenges. When something challenging comes up, I want to deal with it and get it fixed RIGHT NOW. Savoring the learning experience it provides isn't something that fits nicely into my hectic little world, or with my personality, for that matter. I can ususally work stuff out for myself if I give it enough time and energy, but I tend to focus totally on the problem at hand to the exclusion of everything else. And stress myself out in the process. If my mom and my elementary school report cards are to be believed, I've been that way my whole life.

The rest of the habits come pretty naturally. Just looking at the massive list of bookmarks I've created indicates that I've got the whole "create a learning toolbox" thing down.