Is it the end or only the beginning? - Summary

It is just the beginning for me! I am sad that I have completed all 23 Things. I have been pushing myself to make sure that I completed all 23 Things before the end date. (We have Freshman orientation coming up this week and I was getting nervous!). There is still so much to explore and do. I have a list of things that I am going back to look at again or to work on and my list keep growing.

I have enjoyed each of the discoveries and exercises. I don't really have a favorite. If I had to rank or prioritize the Things, the productivity tools would rank #1 followed by pictures/images. I found value to me personally and professionally in each Thing. Some of things I knew of or about but others I knew nothing. I needed the structure to go in and actually do. I feel even stronger about my knowledge about the web and I feel I can apply this to my classroom and my personal life as well.

For 9 years I have been working on areas I need to develop to be selected as an ETF with this district. This program is going to help me become what I want to be. The easiest habit I said in Thing #1 for me was using technlogy to my advantage, I now know that I haven't been using effectively what is out there for me. I am going to be better than before. The hardest habit for me was to play. I have definitely played thanks to the structure of this program and I have planned to go back and play some more.

I guess the biggest surprise is how easy many of these Things are to do and how beneficial they can be to today's students. To set up a wiki or a blog was very easy. An unexpected outcome was I wondered how to keep up with everything I was very overwhelmed by this until I learned about readers. I don't have to go check in everywhere, I just check my reader and see what is new. I loved reading everyone's blogs. It gave me some additional ideas and I love sharing.

The only improvement would be in what is wanted in our blogs as we reflect on our discovery. It seemed we were seeing the same applications of the discoveries over and over again.

If there was another discovery program would I participate??? That is a definite, YES! I appreciate the time it takes to put this together. If I had to go out and do this on my own I would not know where to begin and I would probably not learn anything. I liked that the information and options were brought together and have been looked at by someone known. This helps weed out the unnecessary and weak stuff. I like the discovery lesson where I have to "do it". I also loved being able to do this on my own time at home as well. Other reasons I why I would participate in another discovery program are: it was easy, fun, informative, and valuable. The most important reason why I would participate in another orogram is I want to learn more!

Now that I have the knowledge, I hope to have a class wiki and blog set up for my students and parent. I want to also set up for students to access photos. I think this is a good place to start and then I will go back and revisit and build after these are established.

In my reader I have subscribed to a couple of feeds on developments in web 2.0. I have my reader on my homepage so everytime I get on the computer I can see new posting and easily learn new things.