My name is Beth Disque. I am a K-5 librarian at Birchwood Elementary School in Niskayuna School District. I am taking this course because I want to learn more about, try to discover the relevance of, and "catch up" with all the new tech tools in the online world.
Starting with Thing 1: Blogging...
My past experience is limited and never provided any reason for me to want to keep up with blogging. My colleagues and I had a blog we were using a couple of years ago when we were trying to decide on what product we wanted to use for a new online library catalog. Several members were regular contributors and others never even logged into the blog. I found it to be "one more thing" I had to remember to do each day. To me, group e-mails were just as effective, quicker, easier to access, and easier to add a comment.
I have a close girlfriend in CA who blogged her experience with cancer from diagnosis to "cure". While writing about a terrible time in her life, she made us all laugh with her marvelous wit and sense of humor. It was a way for her to keep all of us informed without lengthy phone conversations. I don't know if I'd be able to keep a blog if I were faced with a life threatening disease, but it worked for her and all of us who read her blog appreciated her willingness to share her experience.
On the other hand, that same friend blogged about her trip to India which I only looked at so that I could add a comment every now and then and appear to be interested for the sake of friendship.
Now, here I am "learning with CDLC". After reading the article on Webjunction I decided that I would try to "learn to care" about blogs.
Several of the sample blogs looked very interesting, but more like websites than what I think of as being a blog. I liked The Daily Dragon but think it would take a lot of time and work to keep up-to-date. The same can be said about most of the blogs I viewed.
I had a hard time setting up a blog. I tried WordPress, but for every username I chose (and I spent about 30 minutes trying different ones), I got a message that said that name was available for $17 a month but not as a free one. I finally gave up and came to Blogger. com.
So here I am, posting my first blog for the class. I think using a blog to keep track of learning accomplishments is a good idea. I am looking forward to it.
Learning with CDLC
