Final Blog Post

      I am walking away from this class with a much broader understanding of the basic Google Tools.  In my position as a School Library Media Specialist, many people (students and staff) look to me for help with some of the technology.  I really hated not being sure how to help with a lot of their questions.  I don't feel like I am now a Google Tools expert - there were so many Tools we learned about that at times it was (and for some Tools, still is) very overwhelming.  However, I feel confident enough to know how to find the tools and be able to "play around" with them a bit to refresh my memory and be able to say, "Oh yeah - do this" if I needed to.  I think the key will be to keep doing that at different intervals to keep my memory fairly fresh, especially for the Tools I am less familiar and/or comfortable with.  I should probably go back to the practice activities and challenges to re-read or re-watch the instructions/explanations of the various Tools.  Just like our students, we do require multiple exposures and practice to truly learn something.
      As for PLNs, I hadn't thought about it in that term before, but I have been an active member of 1 for several years.  The Vermont School Library Association (VSLA) has a Listserve that I have subscribed to.  I first joined when I was going through my coursework at UVM and found it very helpful to stay current and "in the loop" between when I finished my training and got my first library job (a 2 year period!).  I could see questions that even experienced librarians had and saw the broad level of support for everyone.  When I started my job last fall, I certainly had several questions and received a lot of helpful responses and suggestions.  Before the end of my first year I found I was even responding to others' questions sometimes too, which I would not have expected to feel comfortable or knowledgeable enough to do!
       Last spring I also attended the Dynamic Landscapes conference and went to the Twitter presentation.  At that session I created a Twitter account and selected 2 librarians (1 national - our keynote speaker and 1 local - the session presenter) to follow, since these seemed to be a good starting point.  I might have followed them for about a week and then the "end of the school year crunch" happened and I haven't checked back in since.  I need to find a way to remember to check my Twitter account at least a few times per week to build the habit.  Since I know I check several e-mail accounts daily and a Facebook account several times per week (usually) I know I can do this too.  The difference seems to me is that I can do all the others on my desktop or laptop, but associate Twitter with my iPod Touch not my computer.