LBS 850

Week 15

Course Takeaways

I really enjoyed this class.  It was fun and helpful and the diversity in the assignments made the class more interesting.  The “real world” experiences have enhanced my ability to connect with students and basically do my job better. Your positivity and encouragement were motivating!

Some high points:👏

¨ The ability and time allowed to play around with different tools. I have used Screencastify several times in my job this month and it has been a great addition to my repertoire. I also implemented a few Padlets to my classes and am considering the unlimited paid version. Learning and toying with other new tools to me such as FlipGrid, Glogster, and Animoto was valuable.

¨ The OPAC module was helpful and thought-provoking. I didn’t realize there were so many out there that schools could choose from and I feel more educated if I was to go to another district or if ours decided to consider a change.


¨ The discussions were set up for us to learn from each other, and that was accomplished and greatly appreciated. I have had classes where the discussion topic is very narrow, and everyone felt as if they had to write a term paper instead of a casual discussion. As Gabriele said in one of her discussion posts, “I didn’t have the pressure of having to come up with an initial post and then comment on others’ posts or post something by this day and then follow up by this day...” This helped the flow and natural feel of conversation.


¨ Your videos were the best and I truly appreciated the work that goes into keeping up with them every week. They were hilarious and informative and were a great supplement to the content page. The detail of the content page was also helpful. I have had teachers who have provided a couple sentences and a very long list of reading. Most of the class were left feeling unsure of the content or assignment specifics. I never really felt that way in this class and if I did, I had no hesitation in reaching out. Believe it or not, some of us in this class had the unfortunate experience of a professor in a particular course, shaming us for asking questions. It’s not a good feeling!


¨ I was thankful for the detailed feedback that accompanied our grade. Others in this class have mentioned receiving feedback such as “great” or “nice job” which is somewhat weak after working many hours on something you are proud of! I was also impressed with the screencast of you grading our assignments, that was personal and fun!


Lows (not really, just thoughts…)💭

¨ Your hair. Just kidding, I thought you looked great in all the videos!!


¨ The adaptive and assistive technology module was somewhat repetitive for those of us who took LBS 724, but still helpful, nonetheless. I liked having to ask around in my district who the point person (NO ONE!) was that handles it. It helped me understand what was going on in my building and what was not.


¨ As most others have already mentioned and comes as no surprise I’m sure, the cataloging module was hard to get through. Thankfully Destiny does this very complex job for me so I didn’t sweat it that much.


¨ As I mentioned above, I liked the OPAC module, but not so much the assignment. It was difficult to really know how the software works from the librarian’s perspective without owning the product. However, I am not sure of another way to approach this other than the project you gave us!


¨ The last “low” for me was the number of apps/tools we needed for the student technology project. I did enjoy the research that the assignment required, however, it felt forced to come up with 10 apps. It was the worst grade I got out of all the assignments and the most time and effort I took out of all the weeks in the course.
Thanks again for a wonderful class, it was such a great experience.