Thing #23 Summary

I did it! Overall, this was an enjoyable experience, but I am just as overjoyed that I am finished. I set a goal to finish before the end of June, so that I would have a break in July to do all of the other things I want to do this summer, and I did it.

My favorite discoveries were Flickr, all of the Big Huge Lab projects, and Library Thing. These will enable me to introduce many new, yet reasonable and fun, projects to the students and teachers at my school.

The most unexpected outcome for me was that I was able to do it in my time frame (although I worked many hours a day). I was very nervous at the beginning of this program because there were so many things listed that I had never heard of, much less knew anything about. I was afraid that I might not be able to complete it, so imagine how proud I am at this moment!

My suggestion to improve the program is to break it into a shorter "discovery" program. I think 15 things would be a good start and might alleviate the frustration that I read about in some of the blogs. It might also give everyone a chance to explore more of the things that they are planning to use and come up with more ideas of how to put them into place. I enjoyed the first half more than the 2nd half and found it more beneficial for school use.

I also found that in some of the "things" there were steps left out. I wrote about this in some of my blog entries. I don't know if this was on purpose, so that we would figure it out on our own, or if it is a little glitch in the system. I noticed that a few people had trouble uploading Photostory into Thing 21. I found the directions when I went to Help on Blogger and typed in "how to put a video in a blog". In our directions, it said that it could be uploaded, but didn't say how and I noticed that the other people that are already finished with this program were not able to upload their Photostory into their blog.

I would participate in another program, but I would prefer that it be a little less intense. There were many hours (60+) put into this 18 hour staff development. I do like the option of doing the work on our own time, but I am used to taking online courses. I feel so much more knowledgeable and excited about some of the new things that I learned. Thanks for all of your hard work creating the program.