ASLA/Library Symposium/AETC

I am still a little beside myself about my election to ALA Council. I have a really full ALA Annual conference schedule looming, but before that, there will be a whole week in June which our state devotes to professional learning...and helping Alabama librarians and teachers improve their practice is something very dear to my heart.

I was very flattered to be asked to give the keynote for ASLA, our recently-renamed (was AIMA) state school library association at their annual conference on Monday, June 13th. It will be about "Future-Proofing The School Library:"  In the era of dispensable librarians, there are some easy, digitally-enabled ways to make yourself the school's lead information broker and technology point-person. Discover ways to make increase your program's profile, integrate information literacy, and real-world technology skills, and boost your circulation and increase both student and teacher door count. 

I am also going to embed a lot of the experiences I have had recently dealing with our state department of education and their view of librarians as less than classroom teachers, suggesting ways we can change that mindset.

For my breakout session that afternoon, I will be looking at "The Librarian as Technology Leader: One Dozen Ways to Create An Information-Rich, Technologically-Enhanced School Culture:" Online applications can create real opportunities for global connectedness, offer opportunities for authentic information literacy, and showcase student work and learning. Learn about ways to keep your students in the swim of things with an emphasis on free applications and lowest-common-denominator hardware solutions.

This session will be extra-fun because I will get to share the inspirational work of my PLN, so will get to look at a variety of library settings and network restrictions and how school librarians have worked around limitations.

The educational techology conference, AETC, run by our state department of education Technolgy Initiatives division, begins Tuesday June 14th with preconference workshops, including a full-day School Library Symposium. I will be giving some "inspirational" opening remarks as well as a concurrent session  on "Reading with Google: Search and Embed Google's Books, Scholar and RSS Reader in Your Library:"  Dip into the world of electronic reading using the rich trove of content available via online application. The Google Certified Teacher will present tips and techniques for identifying and accessing the content you and your students want for reading on and offline, on any web-enabled mobile device, and using dedicated e-readers.

That Wednesday, I will get a bit of a breather to enjoy the AETC opening conference session and some of the concurrent ones, but I am presenting again the afternoon of Thursday June 16th. My first session will be "21st Century Reading" and will look a lot like the Google session from Tuesday, and the second will be "eReaders for the Classroom," an e-reading presentation with Carolyn Starkey, not too dissimilar from the ones we have given at Computers in Libraries and the Alabama Library Association conferences. 

With our school year extended until June 4th (yes, that is a Saturday) because of the recent weather events, I will be scrambling to pull all this together, and I am thankful for that week between the state stuff and ALA Annual. If you are an Alabama school librarian or teacher, be sure to register for ASLA, the Library Symposium (through AETC), and AETC today.