My final post for LIBE 477

Wow! The middle of April is quickly approaching and that means the end of LIBE 477. Mixed feelings welcomed me to this course, and now that it is ending the same feeling are reappearing, but for different reasons: Fear, nervousness and excitement are all intertwined.

My fear can be explained in all the unanswered questions that I have. Will I remember how to use all the new tools that I have learned? Who will answer my endless questions now that Joanne will not be an email address away? Will I really be able to teach others how to do this? What do you mean the course is already over? I haven’t learned everything yet! At the beginning of the course I was worried that I would not be able to keep up with all the readings, discussions and new information in the lessons. Now, I am worried that I may not be able to remember how to use all the tools that I have been working with, or maybe I won’t be able to explain them clearly to others.

Fear is accompanied by nervousness. What happens if during one of my lessons or workshops, someone asks a question that I cannot answer? Who will help me? Joanne won’t be at the other end of my email account patiently answering all of my inquiries. There is also the fear of how I will keep up with all the new tools that are doming into our lives. As is, I haven’t had the chance to try out all of the tools mentioned in this course. Will I ever be able to get to all of then?

When starting the course, I was excited about all the new tools that I would be learning about. Now, although I am afraid, I am excited to implement my new found knowledge and modernize some of my old, boring lessons. I am excited to share the knowledge with my students while implementing the new lessons. Won’t I be the “cool” teacher?!

Pride is a new emotion added to the mixture that was not present when I wrote my first post. However, I must admit that pride is what I am feeling as I write this last post. Considering the fact that I do not own my own cell phone, not even to mention that I have never sent a text message, I have travelled a long distance to be able to tweet, blog , create animotos, wikis and other tools. Last week, the district techie commented on how much I have learned throughout the course. Boy it felt good to hear those words come form his mouth. That was when I had to take a step back and look at what I have accomplished throughout the last four months. Way more than I ever thought I would.

The journey was not always easy and frustration was definitely an emotion that was dealt with often. For example, when working on my Vision of the Future wiki the other day, my patience was running thin and anger was boiling because I could not link my screen cast address to my wiki page. This continued for over an hour. However, when explaining to my husband what I was trying to do, I recalled that I had a similar problem when working on my screen cast blog post. The problem was solved when I hit the preview button, Why not try that? I did and all was fun. “What a dummy I am!” were the next words out of my mouth. A simple concept for most, took me what seemed like forever to complete. However, once the wiki was completed the angry and frustration were replaced by pride.



I must admit that the journey has not always been pleasant, and defiantly was not always easy for me, but it was absolutely rewarding and I would defiantly do it again without questions or hesitation. What will the future bring for the library catalog? The point is that the library catalog has a long way to go...must integrate Web 2.0 toolsTherefore, as this course ends my sentiments are “I am woman, hear me roar” and “Nothing can stop me now”.