Conference Notes
I’m not really a huge conference goer. I should go to more because for there’s seldom much in the way of professional development at inservice days. I try to get to the MEMO (Minnesota Educational Media Organization) conference that’s offered in the beginning of October every year. I always take something back that I can use in the classroom and I always come away with something to think about. It was sad to see that the number of attendees seemed to be lower that previous years. Minnesota budgets have been hard on media specialists.
Keynote
The keynote speaker was Dr. Scott McLeod (Dangerously Irrelevant) who warned us that he might say things that we didn’t want to hear. He challenged us to think about 12 questions we should be asking ourselves.
- Do I really understand the economic climate?
- How do I best support student acquisition of 21st century skills?
- Do I really understand how students are using social media?
- What did I do this month to support open access initiatives?
- What does it mean to be a “book” these days?
- What does it mean to be a “library” these days?
- Am I modeling for students and staff these new literacies?
- Am I teaching appropriate use or empowered use?
- What have I done this week to help my leaders?
- Do I truly “get it?”
- What percentage of my job requires me?
- Why am I here?
Not only are the questions thought provoking but we were given time to talk to our neighbors about how we felt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a keynote that required audience participation.
Session 1 — Thinkfinity Curriculum Resources Overview — Presented by Cara Hagen
I’ve looked briefly at Thinkfinity.org before but thought I needed more information. I think now that I need to look at it some more. It has thousands of lesson plans, interactive resources and web links. But I wonder… are the teachers at my school so locked into curriculum that they can’t use resources like this?
Session 2 — Graphic Novels in the Library and Classroom — Presented by Heidi Hammond
Having taken a children’s lit class from Heidi, I knew that this session would be interesting. I liked the brief history of comics and graphic novels that she presented and her research. This is an area I’m quite interested in expanding in my elementary level library. I’ll be looking for her handouts on the MEMO ning.
Session 3 — Fast & Fun: Lightning Presentations on Library 2.0 Tools & Topics — Presented by Ann Walker Smalley
I haven’t really done much with Image generators because I’m not real artsy but my students might like to do more with this sort of application so I shouldn’t ignore it. Why have I been ignoring Firefox Add-ons?? Easy Youtube Video downloader looks like it would be really useful. PLN’s are vitally important. One of my frustrations when I first started looking at blogs was how to find blogs that would meet my needs. Now there’s 100 Best Blogs for School Librarians.
Session 4 — Web 2.0: Voice Thread, Screencast-o-matic, Moodle — Presented by Mary Litwinczuk
I haven’t done much with Moodle but I think there are people who really like it. I’ll definitely go back to Mary’s Moodle course if I have questions about Voice Thread or screencasting. I’m planning on using Voice Thread for 4th and 5th grade presentations this quarter but wasn’t sure just how to do it. Now I think I see that it would work. Very exciting!
