What a whirlwind learning experience this has been! I started on Monday (December 17th) and here I am at the end of a week on number 23. I won't say finishing, because learning is never done, right?
It may have been an unusual approach to do the project in a week, but for me, it was great. And since I did it entirely outside of work time - other than going to work - this is about all I've done for a week.
What I liked the most was that each activity had both a great introductory activity as well ones to explore more deeply. I also liked going to other QL blogger sites to see what they had to say. As a latecomer, I had lots to choose from.
I liked the fact that for me some things were totally new - image generators, Rollyo and tagging; some I'd heard of and had never gotten around to - blogs, wikis and RSS; and some were a chance to delve more into something I already was familar with - QL digital media, Youtube, podcasting.
How I'd like to see it improve, is perhaps develop a buddy system - it might have been more fun - and I might have started sooner - if I had a partner to talk with. Actually, on Friday, I did mention it to a coworker, and now she got started, so maybe we'll get to interact about it a bit.
But to mesh web activity with face2face would have strengthened it for me.
Along the same lines, to encourage interaction - why not make posting to someone else's QL blog and posting to the QL Learning 2.0 blog a part of the assignments at some point? Or some other kind of participant interaction activity?
Another thing I'd suggest is create a list of places that participants will be creating accounts. The list could be a simple word document that people could download and fill in with their account names and password hints for themself. Because one does have to remember a lot of passwords and I finally developed a system. (I couldn't just use the same one, as what worked
on one site was taken on another.)
I'm glad that we were asked to record our reactions in a blog - as I know there are definitely things I'll want to come back to. I plan to add to this blog as I learn more, but not for a few days - I definitely need a break.
Thanks to the QL Lifelong learning team for setting this up - and also to the Charlotte/Mecklenburg Co. Libraries for creating it and being willing to share such a wonderful idea.
Would I do another program like this? Yes!!!! When can I sign up?
Sunday, December 23, 2007
#22 Thinktime on OVERDRIVE!!!!
Whew! What a week! I can not believe I really have completed all but the eval in seven (gasp) days...and no cheating.
Overdrive is already on my computer - I've used it to download music, though, not books. I re-watched the intro video and used advanced search (but that wasn't new to me). So, I placed a yoga video and an audiobook, 101 Power Thoughts by Louise Hay on hold. The fact that there 10 people on the waiting list for the 1 "copy" of Hay's bookmeans people really are using this service!
I visited "most recently returned" to get an idea of what people are checking out, and also clicked on some of the left-column categories. I was surprised that the category "Children's " had nothing in it. It was under the non-fiction subhead, so was this supposed to be children's nonfiction? Are there really none? And why isn't there a subhead category under fiction for Children? Another thing that surprised me was that when I clicked on "more fiction" I didn't get an expanded list of fiction categories, rather more about the categories already there.
I'm going to see what others have to say about their journeys on overdrive.
And later today, I'll be posting THING 23!!! Whooopeeeee!!!!
Overdrive is already on my computer - I've used it to download music, though, not books. I re-watched the intro video and used advanced search (but that wasn't new to me). So, I placed a yoga video and an audiobook, 101 Power Thoughts by Louise Hay on hold. The fact that there 10 people on the waiting list for the 1 "copy" of Hay's bookmeans people really are using this service!
I visited "most recently returned" to get an idea of what people are checking out, and also clicked on some of the left-column categories. I was surprised that the category "Children's " had nothing in it. It was under the non-fiction subhead, so was this supposed to be children's nonfiction? Are there really none? And why isn't there a subhead category under fiction for Children? Another thing that surprised me was that when I clicked on "more fiction" I didn't get an expanded list of fiction categories, rather more about the categories already there.
I'm going to see what others have to say about their journeys on overdrive.
And later today, I'll be posting THING 23!!! Whooopeeeee!!!!
# 21 Podding along
Okay, checked out the podcast search sites, put a feed for esl pod casts on bloglines. I'd like to recommend Audacity, a free downloadable software that allows you to record, edit and mix sounds. I've used it to make CD's for our adult English learners, and can be used to make podcasts, too. It has some great tutorials -- even a wiki-based one!
#20 I've been looking forward to this one!
Youtube and I are already friends. It's a huge unwieldy mish-mash of wonderful videos and terrible junk. But I always find something interesting on my hunt - and it always sends me off in some new direction.
See my comments below on Zuiikin English. The Adult Learner Program video is actually my own - my first editing job and post to Youtube in Jan 2006. At this point, it's my ownly upload, but expect to do a few more this year.
I came across the wonderful Blogs in Plain English intro video through the site WEShow - it shows award winning videos.
Earlier - see my post"You Tube to Me Blog" -- I learned how that I could link my blog with my Youtube account, and easily add videos to my blog. Today, I learned that on youtube, I can create my own video log - to collect and comment on other people's videos. Uh-oh....I feel a resolution coming on...resolution 4: started a video log on Youtube. Guess that's a vlog, huh?
See my comments below on Zuiikin English. The Adult Learner Program video is actually my own - my first editing job and post to Youtube in Jan 2006. At this point, it's my ownly upload, but expect to do a few more this year.
I came across the wonderful Blogs in Plain English intro video through the site WEShow - it shows award winning videos.
Earlier - see my post"You Tube to Me Blog" -- I learned how that I could link my blog with my Youtube account, and easily add videos to my blog. Today, I learned that on youtube, I can create my own video log - to collect and comment on other people's videos. Uh-oh....I feel a resolution coming on...resolution 4: started a video log on Youtube. Guess that's a vlog, huh?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)