Friday, July 10, 2015

ALA Part 3 - AASL Sessions, Storify Summary, & More

This is Part 3 of my ALA Conference reflections. See Part 1 and Part 2.

Besides the YALSA-sponsored young adult author sessions I attended at the American Library Association Conference in San Francisco in June, many of my activities centered around AASL (American Association of School Librarians) events. Here are some of the highlights:

I just completed my second year as a member of the AASL Best Websites for Teaching and Learning Committee, and I participated on the panel session in which we announced and described our 25 site selections for 2015. Here's our slideshow:
And, you can see descriptions of each of the sites here.

I also attended AASL's Best Apps presentation and learned about some great apps I want to experiment with and share with colleagues and students. Here's the link to their presentation and a link to the list and descriptions.

If you have websites or apps you want to recommend for the 2016 list, be sure to submit them on the AASL website. You can submit a website recommendation here and an app recommendation here.

Another session I particularly enjoyed was Nancy Jo Lambert (one of my Twitter PLN buddies) and Stacy Cameron's "Resource Re-Defined: Libraries as Learning Spaces." Both of them are from Frisco USD in Texas. The session gave me a lot of ideas and food for thought on modifications I can make in my library to better attract and serve my students. Both Nancy Jo and Stacy stressed that it's best to start small; even small changes, such as  rearranging furniture and getting a few maker space supplies, can make a difference. Nancy Jo has set up maker spaces in two different elementary school libraries and shared a lot of ideas of what - both tech and non-tech - can be included. She is moving to a brand new high school in the fall, and we got to learn about the design of that state-of-the art facility and how she is planning to run it. I'm looking forward to hearing about her new adventures. Here are is a link to their slides. I so want the Kwikboot charging stations displayed on Slide 14!

While I love attending sessions and make a habit of sharing my observations on Twitter as I do, I could have gone away from the conference happy with just the networking. I met new people, some brand new, some I already know via social media; I renewed old friendships; and I exchanged ideas. I especially enjoyed getting to meet some of the folks who enrolled in the one-month online "Learn to Tweet" class I taught as an offering for AASL leadership the month before the conference. While I missed getting photos of many more people than I took, you can see in my Twitter stream that I enjoyed mingling with lots of old and new friends!

I am embedding myTwitter story of the conference captured through Storify below.

As I went through this Storify, I realized that I didn't mention some key highlights in this and my two earlier blog postings about the conference. So, here are a few more:

One was getting to hear Googler Dan Russell share his vision for the future of libraries, and advice on how we can better serve our students and patrons educating them in being more savvy searchers. As he mentioned, the "the best internet connection is a librarian. We need to be the teachers." He also reminded us that "research skills is not something you learn once and then know forever - keep up!" I couldn't agree more. I have actually hear him speak several times and participated in Google's online searching and power searching classes. I want to take the power searching class again next time it is offered since there is always more to learn, and lots to remember, process, and refresh! Here are the slides from his session.

I was also grateful to get to attend the wonderful breakfast hosted by Alexander Street Press featuring Cynthia Sandburg, an attorney turned biodynamic farmer, sharing the benefits of biodynamics.

And, finally, while I tend to live in a YA world in terms of most of my reading, I was delighted to attend 3M's event at the Terra Gallery where we heard two best selling authors of adult books, Paula McLain and Vanessa Diffenbaugh, share their stories. McLain is the author of The Paris Wife and Diffenbaugh's first book is The Language of Flowers. We were treated to ARCs of their upcoming books. McLain's is Circling the Sun, set in 1920's British Kenya, and based on the life of Beryl Markham. Diffenbaugh's is We Never Asked for Wings, about a struggling mother trying to keep her family together. I can't wait to read them and I am so appreciative of 3M for hosting the event and including me.

Here's my Storify Twitter account of the conference week:




1 comment:

  1. You really can't beat the food at this place; they have the best vegetarian meals and the most adorable dishes for the kids. The service at venues for events also was impeccable. The salad I had for dinner was delicious as well as the scallop appetizer. The main course of filet mignon and dessert soufflé was also awesome!

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