I was determined to finish on this last day, but thought it might take until midnight. ;-) I like completing what I start, and having finished 23 Things on a Stick, I knew there would always be some advantage to finishing.
I did experience some frustrations with 23 Mobile Things though. In the beginning I felt like most of the apps were ones that I already had experience with and either used on a regular basis or had decided I didn't care to use for a variety of reasons, and so it felt like I wasn't learning anything new or experiencing any challenge. Well, this spring provided enough challenges in my personal and work life, so now I'm grateful. Challenge from 23 Mobile Things would have been enough to make me quit. The other major frustration had nothing to do with the program itself, but with the way mobile technologies work. A few weeks ago I got the e-mail from Springpad that they were shutting down. At least this time I made a point of migrating my information over to Evernote (Springpad's recommended replacement app) before the deadline to avoid losing everything, like had happened to me before, but it's still not the same. I know there were some poster sessions at this year's TIES conference about using Springpad in various instructional contexts. Using this example, there was clearly some function in Springpad that was considered unique, since Evernote has been around so much longer, and so while their work done in Springpad is not completely lost, the functionality and purpose of creating in Springpad is possibly lost when moved out into Evernote. I can see those types of things dissuading someone from branching out. Going back to a comment I made in Thing 13 - Presentations, this supports the notion of learning and understanding the basic concept and function of the app because there is a great likelihood that that particular app won't be available or maintained and you'll need to move to another bookmarking, interactive whiteboard, photo editing, audio recording app against your choosing.
I would certainly participate in future 23 Things programs, as I always get something out of them!
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