Beyond Method 12

Please reflect on your learning journey and post a few thoughts. Here are some questions to prompt you if you’re drawing a blank for your post …

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
• How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
• Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
• What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?And last but not least…
• If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?

My favorite discovery from the Beyond Two-Steppin Program was learning about creating presentations online and all of those different tools that were available to use. I also liked learning about having a customized portal to the internet through igoogle or Netvibes, where the things that I am interested in are readily accessible (instead of what the search engine believes that I will find interesting). I also really enjoyed learning about digital storytelling. I am definitely going to try this with my own images, but maybe one day, these tools can be used for images that were captured during storytimes and other programs. This program has assisted in my lifelong learning goals by making me aware of tools that I had no idea were out there, so that not only I can utilize them, but I can suggest them to patrons who made need to use tools like these in the future. I know that we have some patrons who do not own flash drives, and I think that using those online documents or presentations could help them keep access to their work in the future (especially if they do not have Microsoft Office products at home, they would still be able to keep working on the project). As for the things that surprised me, I did not realize how many different and useful tools were out there and free of charge to help with creating documents, presentations, having your own "customized window" to the internet, screencasting, and more. I think that we should, as librarians, know more about these things, so that we can share them with our patrons. I know that ebooks can be really expensive, and I would love to tell a patron who has just brought in a brand new ereader, where they can find thousands of "free" books to read on it. I would definitely love to participate in any programs like this that are offered in the future. This has been a great learning experience for me. Thanks!