Week 11 - Wrap Up

Now that we've reached the last week of the Invitational, I'm amazed at how quickly it went!  In the beginning I wondered if I'd be able to keep up with the weekly assignments given my busy life, but I found the work load manageable and I enjoyed the different challenges each week.  I was reminded that I am definitely someone who works best on my own schedule and I really appreciated the flexibility that this experience offered.  If logging in at a particular time on a particular day had been a requirement, I don't think I would have been successful.  So, I take this reminder and understanding and extend it to think about how I plan and facilitate professional development in my own school district.   I'd like to see if I can use a similar format for staff development which enables everyone to learn at their own pace, wherever they happen to be. 

My biggest "discovery" was really more of an affirmation of what I already knew (but sometimes forget).  Learning is powerful and MARVEL holds a vast amount of potential for absolutely every one.  The range of resources is astonishing and there is a database for just about every reference query or casual pondering.  In terms of specific discoveries, I really enjoyed using the Ancestry Library.  That was fun from a personal perspective and I can really see now how it can be used in a variety of different ways professionally (most definitely in public libraries and also even in my elementary school). 

I am excited to continue to share MARVEL resources with my students and colleagues.   I think that after this challenge  I am going to make a bigger effort to promote MARVEL with the teachers that I work with, taking opportunities whenever they arise to show a little snippet at the beginning of staff meetings, etc.  I'm also actually going to show my students this MARVEL blog to model for them that I am still discovering new things about MARVEL and that it can be really fun to explore and learn. 

 Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this Invitational with librarians from all over Maine!