Final Course Reflections

I can't believe the semester is drawing to a close and it's time to write my final course reflections!

I have really enjoyed this course immensely. I've had so much fun exploring each of these new technologies and implementing them in various ways. In particular, I've really appreciated the time spent honing my blogging skills. It has been incredibly helpful to kind of be forced to update my blog and comment on my classmates' blogs regularly. It can be tough to make the time to focus on community engagement, but it really is such a wonderful and important part of blogging. I've also found myself focusing more on things like incorporating videos, pictures and links into my posts. I've started making more deliberate choices in labels. I've worked to develop a clear voice. I think my blogging has improved because of this course.

Another part of this course that I particularly appreciated was learning how to create digital stories. I had such a great time creating my digital story and learning how to use imovie. (I'm now more desperate than ever for a MacBook Pro!) This is something that I would have been intimidated to try in the past. I amazed myself with the level of enthusiasm that I had for this project. I happily spent hours reworking my digital story until I was completely happy with it. I'm already planning a few more projects that I'd like to make with imovie. I can't wait to keep exploring with this tool.

I think I pretty much said all I need to say about Popplet, but suffice it to say I see a lot of hours in my future spent on that site!

I managed to accept the loss of Google Reader, and even happily embraced a new reader, and taught our class a little about using Feedly.

I created and implemented a literacy project - with students in Ohio!

We've covered a lot of technologies in this course, and I have enjoyed them all.

In addition, this course has really made me take stock of just how much passion I have for blogging and social media. I have been blogging personally for several years now, but it's something I have always regarded as a hobby. The first page of my iphone is filled with various blogging and social media applications. I check Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest a hundred several times per day. I follow dozens of blogs which I read regularly. I'm a member of several different message boards. I write a book review blog, and I'm toying with starting a Disney fan blog or a personal blog (or both!). I spend a huge amount of my free time glued to my computer. I am always looking for the new great thing out there on the internet, but for some reason I have never really thought in terms of making my love of these various technologies anything more than a hobby.

This course has allowed me to spend a great deal of time further exploring these technologies. It has made me realize that I would like to make a career in blogging and social media. I have recently begun applying for jobs in this field and I couldn't be happier about it. I am looking forward to putting the skills that I have honed in this course to good use both personally and professionally!

What was your favorite part of this course?

My Popplet, My Precious

As soon as I read Diana's post about Popplet, I knew that Popplet was something I was going to love. I immediately decided to explore this tool as one of my web 2.0 experiments.

Popplet is essentially a customizable tool for creating graphic organizers. You can make up to five different Popplets with a free account, and then if you want to create more there are a couple different pricing tiers available. It's pretty inexpensive - you can get unlimited Popplets for $30/year.

How can I put this? I'm so immediately obsessed with this tool that I don't even have a classroom and yet I find myself contemplating the yearly subscription!

This is a great tool for anyone who gets just a little too excited about orgizational tools.

If the books on your shelves are sorted first by genre and then alphabetical order...
If you obsessively collect baskets and containers to sort things into...
If there is a drawer in your desk that is dedicated only to various types and sizes of notebooks...

...then you need Popplet, immediately. (Or possibly some type of intervention.)

This tool is fun and easy to use, it's free (well, it can be) and it's easy to share your completed project in a variety of ways. I enjoyed playing with it and I'm betting lots of students would too.

I also really like that you can import pictures into the boxes! That really opens up a ton of possibilities for implementing this tool in meaningful ways.

I made a simple Popplet organizing the major sub-genres of Young Adult literature (of course I did!) and I easily made this in maybe 30 minutes (at least ten of which was spent deciding which colors to assign to which genre and rearranging the boxes in exactly the right visual arrangement).

Feel free to explore my Popplet! And if you haven't tried this tool yet, I highly recommend it.