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Wakelet & other tools tech reflection



Wakelet

I've dabbled with wakelet in the past. Our district uses it to collect tweets and blog posts from teachers around the district to share with families. This has been a great way to "market" our district and all the great things that are happening in all of our schools. I also really liked that the #ATCHAT twitter chats were archived using wakelet as a way to participate and learn asynchronously. My biggest pet peeve about it though is that in both examples there were a lot of things curated in one wakelet. It takes ages to scroll through all the different posts, some of which are not necessary for the whole audience of wakelet viewers. The friendly banter between people who are friends during the #ATCHAT (similar in our district share too) is distracting from the important learning nuggets. That being said, I think the when used to curate information, resources, or work examples, wakelet is a really awesome tool. I like that one can enter examples from many different web resources. It is visually appealing and user friendly. I can really see myself use this tool to curate resources for research projects or professional development initiatives as well as a way to showcase student work. I plan on using it more in the future for these purposes. But I will be mindful of my own irritation at having too much in a wakelet, particularly of items with little significance to a larger audience.


Keep on Learning tools

Twitter is a very handy tool when it comes to professional learning. I have participated in twitter chats in the past and like how one can use hashtags to see the chat later or find other resources or experts in the specific domain you are interested in. I also like that you can lurk at a conference without even being there! Or if you are there, you can still see what is happening in the other sessions you aren't attending. I use twitter most during conferences for this exact reason. I come away with my head spinning but with more resources and more networked connections than prior to the conference. I will be spying on the AASL conference in Louisville next week since I wasn't lucky enough to be able to attend.

I've participated in many webinars at this point and although I see the value in them, I find myself not very engaged with them. I find I'm impatient for the webinar to move along faster or get distracted by other thoughts and rabbit holes and miss information that I should have heard. It is nice that I can reverse a bit when that happens to get back into it but the fact is I'm not engaged during webinars. If I sat at a in person demonstration or conference presentation, I would be much more engaged and actively working with the ideas. I don't know why I tune out during webinars but I would rather have something that I could read than sit through them.

On the other hand, I LOVE PODCASTS!!!! I am addicted to them and have them going many times a day. I listen while driving to work, cleaning the house, walking the dogs, drinking my coffee, or doing any of the mindless tasks that need done in the library but require little focus (i.e. shelving books). I've learned so much listening to them. I'm sure I annoy my family with all the emails of shared podcasts or how I start many sentences, "I was listening to this podcast..." I've learned about gravity being a wave, gerrymandering, the construct of race, how to better focus, the ethical conundrum of self driving cars, how IQ was developed, history of blackface, and folktales from around the world, just to name a few. And after this week, I now know how to use the captions on my Google Slides in class! This will be a game changer for my students with auditory needs! I've used them in my classes and kids ask to listen to more all the time. I've had kids make their own and want to do this more. I think my love of podcasts is tied to my love of audiobooks and also that it is a strong learning modality for me. I'm transported into a learning paradise while doing the mundane things of life. I'm very grateful for this now trendy way of learning!
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