Twenty Three Skiddoo!

   This is kind of like the Oscar acceptance speech, but I’d like to thank the Learn and Play Team, and apologize for not doing a video (but I will now if you want to do a post-Things video series!).  Thanks to the ELT for allowing and encouraging the staff to Learn and Play, thanks to my supervisor who didn’t gripe when I disappeared for considerable periods of time to work on L&P stuff, and to my co-workers who helped me through some rough spots and seemed to enjoy doing it.  Thanks to my family who had to listen to me both when I was carping about L&P and when I was waxing poetic in my enthusiasm as I discovered the creamy filling and wanted to share all my 2.0 discoveries. 

  Learn and Play has really opened my eyes to a lot of things that are going on in the technological whirlpool of which we are each a part.  Some of us (i.e. ME) are way out on the rim, just beginning to pick up speed and get caught up in the current.  Others, my children among them, are close to the center and moving so fast I have faint hope of catching up!  It affects us all, however, and even the most stubborn, pencil-addicted, battery-free individual will be faced with the necessity of dealing with it someday.

I am still hesitant and unsure about a lot of things we touched on, and, if you have read my blog posts, there are parts of it that I doubt I will ever really understand, enjoy, or use on a daily basis.  Learn and Play has given me the tools to delve more deeply into those things and figure them out when and if I need to make use of them in the future.   A jewelry instructor I know says at the start of each class “If you make a mistake here, no one dies!  So get to work and make some mistakes!”  The L&P team gave us that same freedom–Play with it, no one dies, you can’t bring down the Web by pressing the wrong button!

 One of the things I carry away from Learn and Play is the overwhelming capacity for the exchange of information out on the web.  Blogs seem to appear everywhere–I’m finding that most of the sites I am ordering Christmas gifts from have blogs now, so you can read up on what the company has to say and what they will be doing with the money you just gave them!  Many (too many) interactive sites seem to be filled with rantings from the illiterate and uninformed, and it makes one despair until you realize that these aren’t the people who are out there solving the problems, they are just the ones who have nothing better to do than complain about how unfair the rest of the world is to them! 

Twitter, Google Docs, blogging, and Lulu are my favorite Things.  I think I will be using all of them more and more as time goes on.  I’ve already spoken to many of my friends about them, and gotten several people to check them out on their own with great enthusiasm!  I sincerely hope that CML will publicize Learn and Play and make it available to the whole community (with or without incentives).  This would make a great alternative to the Adult Summer Reading Club!!! 

 The whole Learn and Play program was very well done, and the team deserves highest praise!  From the kickoff with Michael, to the flexibility to add weeks to the program, to the humorous and helpful videos, the whole shootin’ match was well planned and fun.  A feeling of excitement and encouragement was built and maintained throughout, and I know it kept me going through several “chuck it all” moments!  I will look forward to the next initiative, and I hope it comes sooner rather than later!

 I think one of my favorite L&P moments was finding KayBeeStew’s dachshund video on YouTube after Twittering with her many times about her Henry and my Lizzie.  I feel like I’ve made a connection that defies time and space!  If Web 2.0 can make this kind of connection happen for more people in more places then I will overcome my reluctance and be proud of my budding technological savvy!  I will cheer with the best of them “2 point OH!  Way to GO!”

And Gerald, I say “PLAY!!”

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