The Journey Along 550

When first coming to the class, I felt that much of what I already knew was going to be rehashed and maybe presented in a different light. What I found out was that I needed to be refreshed in the topics I thought I knew and that there was much more I needed to know.

One of the areas I really enjoyed knowing about was the availability of open source programs. As an educator/librarian in the middle school, I am confronted with a number of students who have stated the did not have programs for presentations, image editing etc. Having the information about all the available open source programs will help many of the students in producing similar work as their peers who have purchased familiar software suites.

As a media specialist, I find myself being delegated tasks for the school that can be considered those of a public relation's person; however, this task is a necessity for the library. Discovering the many available image generators will provide another level of publishing. Introducing students to these websites will certainly gain their interest in other topics I may have to offer.

What I've taken away from 550 is an area of learning which I categorize as intertaining learning i.e. wikies, blogs, Petchu Ketcha, tweeter, rss feeds and more. These programs are certainly going to play a part in the lives of the community of techies but eventually a part of many others' lives (just think of Star Trek and the infamous communicator - our blue tooth today). Somehow the future (the future is at hand) educators need to know how to integrate this technology into the curriculum.

If I were to change anything of the 550 journey it would be to isolate the area on technologies and create a course on how to use them to enhance the library experience and how to use them in the classroom to enrich the curriculum. I would be very much interested in more information in this area.