Final Reflection on Course #1- Information Literacy and Ourselves as Learners

Project: ES Curriculum Wiki Resource Page

This resource is something I have been thinking about doing for a long time as there is a need for a centrally located, web-based resource center for subject area curriculum. It will be an on-going effort just to get up and running, but the real success will only happen once it becomes a collaborative endeavor and useful resource for teachers. I’ll be most fascinated to see how it evolves over time.

Life-long Learning

This is the best part of this course, of life—the fact that we continue to learn. We live such privileged lives with the world being so accessible at our fingertips. With all that I’ve read (or heard) from my colleagues and others along the way during this course, I have so much more to learn and explore such as:

• Glogster: Chrissy Hellyer referred to this and I’m intrigued—want to check out the possibilities.
• Google calendar: Because of the collaborative capabilities, I’d like to create a curriculum and professional development calendar that is continually updated so that we can always see what people are involved in. I’ll see where this leads. Also, wouldn’t teams or each of the divisions find a google calendar helpful? To be explored.
• Shelfari: Rob referred to this in one of his blogs. Given my love of books, I look forward to exploring this one further.
• Classroom 2.0 Ning: “the social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education.” I hope this can be an entry point for myself into a network of educators since they say, “We especially hope that those who are "beginners" will find this a supportive community and a comfortable place to start being part of the digital dialog.”
• Flatclassroom Conference: Julie Lindsay has definitely whetted my appetite to explore this project and other ones they're involved in.
• Zen Presentations: Kim and Jeff have mentioned this before and I understood the general gist, but want to pursue this further and read the book!
• Many blogs—great thinking, provocative questions, links to more ideas, resources . . . Look forward to having the time to respond to many more now.

Remaining Questions:

Once again, I’m reminded that life and learning are much more about the journey than the destination. With the networked world and ever-evolving tools, this is even more evident. I continue to have some fundamental questions that I’ll consider to ponder along the way:

1. Will we come together to continually search for ways to deepen understanding, not only technological tool skills?
2. Will we find ways to increase and improve the f2f community, not just the networked social community?
3. Will we find a way to balance between our virtual and f2f lives, relationships, and commitments?
4. Will we find a way to tap into this amazing social revolution to improve the world for everyone, not just those who happened to be born in the right place?

Thank you, Jeff, Kim, and colleagues for the learning opportunities you helped facilitate, your reflections, and your passion for improving learning for students. I look forward to the on-going journey!