What did you learn? I learned some great new tools and some new ways to old tools in the library. I didn’t expand my personal network as much as I’d hoped-every year I’ve done this I say I’m going to try harder to checkout more of the work done by other participants and I never seem to get to as much as I want to. If this is offered again next year I’ll have to find a way to make it more of a priority to do that. The biggest challenge is always time and trying not get too far behind (which, as you can see by the way I’m barely making it in by my SLS deadline, I struggled with again this year). My biggest success was finding so many ways to incorporate my goal of going back to learning centers and flipped classroom style learning into our library again thanks to the ideas I got working through the Cool Tools. The kids have been loving them-and library classes have been just flying by with all the fun we’ve been having!
What’s next? I can’t wait to keep creating new centers and trying more and more flipped style activities in our library! I also hope to keep up with blogging in general-it’s been fun to be able to think through what I’m working on this way and I love being able to look back on the year and be reminded of all I’ve accomplished and everything we’ve done. I also like the idea that maybe somewhere, there’s a librarian or teacher who will stumble on some of my posts and find them helpful!
I also hope to find time to tackle some things I was inspired by but ran out of time for, like creating a personal manifesto and/or mission statement for the library. I love the style of the ones included in the final reflection directions.
Finally, since I ran out of time to engage with the participants posts as much as I’d planned this year, I’d love to read some of them now that I’ve finished up my Cool Tools for the year. I’m sure there are plenty of great ideas out there I can still try out in my library this year.
Did you like learning this way? I love having a whole school year to explore, experiment and, learn at my own pace! I also love the freedom of being able to pick up and drop tools at my own discretion. It’s also great to be able to take advantage of someone else’s hard work and just get straight to the fun of exploring and trying out ideas. I’ve done Cool Tools every year since becoming an elementary school librarian and I’ll surely do it again if Polly’s willing to keep hosting it!