Thing 12: Collaborating, Connecting, Sharing

For Thing 12, I browsed through the list and decided to look through a few that were new to me. Some I've used while others I've never heard of.  My school district has recently adopted Google Docs, so I have some basic knowledge of that and how to share content. However, I decided to take it a step further and have students in my classes create content using Google slides and share their projects with me. I had no prior experience doing this, and was thrilled to discover how easy it was to have students share projects and have them displayed through my account for projecting onto the SmartBoard. No need to switch laptops for each presentation like Keynote! Awesome! I didn't really find any "cons" of using the Google suite of apps yet. I will definitely continue to use it and have students share their projects with me for easier presentation experiences.

I had some prior knowledge of slideshare, but when I saw how Polly embedded on it so easily on a webpage, I decided that I will use it in April during National Library Week to feature a slideshow of special Library Week events. Last year I tried to create a video on my MacBook and post it to my webpage, and ended up requiring the assistance of my Technology director. Slideshare will hopefully make it much easier to share!

Also completely new to me was the "Today's Meet" app/website. I went to it and typed in a test message... although with nobody else to meet with at the time, I was unable to get a full picture of how it works and looks.  However, based on the description and the fact that I didn't need to create an account to use it, I plan to further explore this site in my personal life and see if it's a good platform to conduct Board meetings for a nonprofit I'm involved with. It could be the perfect solution for folks who can't physically be at the meeting. I'm not sure how I'd use it with students, other than introducing it to them to use for their own project collaborations.

My favorite "new to me" item on this list was the MakeUseOf.com site. What a great compilation of "Best of" apps, websites, and software. I started looking through it, and each general heading then has links organized by topic, type, or platform in a very graphically pleasing, easy to navigate manner. I liked it so much that I even shared it via my Twitter account (MCSDlibrary).

My second potential favorite might be the appear.in tool. I looked at it, but didn't use it yet. Instead, I forwarded it to my son and asked him to test it out with his friends and let me know how it works. I'll have to report back on it once I have his feedback :-)

I love the great ideas this course provides, and Thing 12 was full of great new ideas for me, many of which I plan to investigate further.