CSLA's 2016 Annual Conference

Getting to meet closing keynoter Bernie Trilling!

A big highlight of the month for me was the California School Library Association's annual conference in San Diego on the theme of "Doorways to Diversity" February 3 - 7. I served as Social Media/Website chair for the conference, presented a workshop session on "Become an Images Ninja with Google and Other Killer Web-Based Apps" and a concurrent session on "Make Twitter Your Number #1 Tool for Building Your Personal Learning Network," and co-led the First Timers' meeting. I also coordinated CSLA's third annual "Unconference," at which participants chose their own topics to discuss and shared great ideas with each other.

My sessions

Here are my Images Ninja session slides:

 I also recorded the session using Google Hangouts on Air:  

Here are my Twitter session slides:

And, my Twitter session recording:

Conference Social Media

This was my second year serving as CSLA's website/social media chair for the conference. I was responsible for posting all the conference information on CSLA's website. I was also responsible for posting to social media on behalf of CSLA. I am very comfortable with Twitter, but not so much with Instagram. One of the ways I "stretched" myself this year was by posting photos to Instagram rather than Twitter. While Instagram has an option to automatically send postings to Twitter, once these posts reach Twitter, they contain only a link to the image, not the image itself. So, readers need to be willing to click the link to view the photo. To avoid double-posting and to make images from Instagram viewable right in Twitter,  I was able to set up an IFTTT "recipe" that automatically posts all Instagram posts to Twitter as "native" tweets. Check it out! I am also using it for my Library social media accounts. 

Unfortunately, IFTTT didn't work to also post to Facebook and Flickr. It has recipes for these apps, but they don't work for pages and groups. (CSLA has a Facebook page and a Flickr group. It doesn't have separate accounts.) So, I'm afraid you won't find conference postings on Facebook. I did post all the photos to Flickr, but those had to be done manually after the fact. Please do visit the CSLA Flickr group for conference photos. And, if you attended the conference and took photos, please them to the group. 

Here is the story I curated for CSLA with Storify of #csla16 tweets from the conference. It offers a running account of many of the conference happenings. The great news is that we had a lot more tweeting at this conference than last year. I also curated a story for the CSLA Centennial Conference in 2015, and had no trouble staying within Storify's 1000 item limit. For 2016, I had to edit out a lot of the tweets to avoid exceeding that limit. Next year, I think CSLA will need to create Storify stories for each day of the conference!

More to come ...

I came away from the conference with many wonderful new ideas of ways to build diversity into our library program and collection and how I can better serve both our students and faculty. I'll be sharing more about the conference soon.

Recording a conference presentation

When I present at a conference, I often make a recording of my session. Why? Well, here are several good reasons:

• I'll have a recording I can look back on for ideas of how to improve next time.
• It will serve as an addition to my digital portfolio.
• I will provide attendees the "rewindable"option of re-watching my session for ideas they might have missed or want to review.
• I can provide people who weren't able to attend the opportunity to hear what I had to say. We all check presentation slides from conference sessions we didn't attend, but that doesn't really tell us what the speaker actually said. A recording of the session is a lot more valuable. 

If you are presenting a session at a conference, consider recording it. One easy way to record your session is with Google Hangouts on Air. When you do that, your session will automatically be loaded to YouTube for easy sharing. And, you will have the option of sharing the recording just with people you send the link to, or making it public for anyone on YouTube to find.

Here's how you can set up, record, and share your session with Google Hangouts on Air. And, these instructions also apply if you would like to record lessons you teach students. When you record your lessons, you can post them online for student review and for those students who were absent. 

One caveat: Only attempt this if you are getting good internet reception and your computer is performing well. Otherwise, you will make a slow connection and poor computer performance worse, leading to frustration both for you and your attendees.

Before your session:

1. At any time before your session, go to https://plus.google.com/hangouts/onair?hl=en (You can also get there from hangouts.google.com by opening the menu at the top left and select Hangouts on Air.)
2. Click Create a Hangout on Air.
3. Fill out the dialog box that appears:

By removing the Your Circles and Public options from the Audience, you can keep the hangout private during your recording and switch it to public after the recording is complete and you know you are comfortable with it. If, though, you want to make your session publicly available while you present, keep the default Public option. In any case, you need to invite at least one person to your session in order to proceed and select Share.

Just before your session:

1. For the best performance, restart your computer and avoid loading or running any unneeded programs until you finish your session and recording.
2. Go to Plus.Google.com and select Events on the left. Find your event and click the title. You will now see a screen that looks like this:

3. Click the blue Start icon.

The Hangout will load in a new tab or window. You will see a prompt box reminding you that you will be on air, asking if you want to restrict access to people under 18, and asking if you want to invite people. You can just click Skip to proceed.

The hangout will take a few moments to fully load. Once it does, you will see a green Start Broadcast button at the bottom. (Note that you must enter the hangout through the Events link and with the account you used to establish the hangout and, or you will not have access to the Start Broadcast option.)

4. Once the session begins, click the Start Broadcast Button. Note that you cannot start the broadcast, stop it, and start again, so make sure you are ready to record when you click Start Broadcast. (If there are gaps in your session you don’t want on air, you can edit them out later in the YouTube editor.)
5. Stand in front of the camera on your computer and introduce yourself, so that the viewers of the recording get to see you. If you are using a presentation slides, you can then switch over to screen sharing for the rest of the session.
6. To screen share, hover your cursor on the left edge of the hangout window to display a series of icons, as in this illustration:

7. Select the Screen sharing icon. You can select to share your entire computer if you will be moving to different windows and files, or you can share just one window if you are using just one.
8. At the end of the session, click Stop recording.

After the session:

1. At any time after the session, go to YouTube.com. Select My Channel on the left, and then Video Manager at the top of the next screen display:

You will see your video listed, as in this example:

2. Clicking the title of the video will take you to play mode. Click Edit to make any edits or enhancements, such as editing out any unwanted footage at the beginning or adding annotations. The Edit screen will also allow you to change your video from Unlisted to Public, from the drop-down in this illustration:

If you make the recording Public, it will be searchable on YouTube. If you keep it Unlisted, you can share the link with others, but it won’t be searchable.

3. Copy the video share link to share your video with others.

So, go for it! Record your presentations - or lessons - and share them widely!

Mira Costa Maker Fair!

Look what we've been busy planning for at the Mira Costa Library (original link):

Google for Education Certified Innovator Applications Open

Attending the Google Teacher Academy in July 2014 was one of the most transformative experiences in my career as a teacher librarian. I am an admitted conference "junkie," and come away from every conference and workshop I attend energized with new ideas. The Google Teacher Academy, though, allowed me to mingle with and be inspired by 64 other attendees, plus a couple of dozen Googlers and lead learners/organizers, every single one of whom was determined to think outside the box, take risks, stretch themselves, and lead positive change in their home turf. The group energy was truly electrifying! And, it hasn't stopped; we still communicate via social media to exchange ideas.

After over a year's hiatus while the Google team was reconceptualizing the Google Teacher Academies and transforming the title of attendees from "Google Certified Teacher" to "Google for Education Certified Innovator," applications are now open for the next academy. Here's the description on the Google for Education Certified Innovator page of the kind of candidates they are looking for:

"... people who:

• Are ambassadors for change and empower other educators and students
• Want to change the world of education by tackling complex opportunities to develop new-to-the-world solutions
• Already foster a thriving innovation culture within their classrooms, schools and organizations"

That sure sounds to me exactly like what any good teacher librarian does. While I loved mingling with all the other teachers at my academy, I was disappointed that there weren't more librarians there. In fact, there was only one other person working as a school librarian and in the process of earning his credential, and one English teacher working towards a teacher librarian credential. We need more teacher librarians at the next and future academies bringing their unique skills and perspectives to the mix. So .... please apply!

Here are just a few of what could be many reasons why you'll find attending a Google Teacher Academy valuable:

• You will see great examples of new and better ways to engage students, and help them explore their passions, learn to solve problems, and prepare for their futures
• You will become part of a cohort of enthusiastic people you can network with and share ideas with, and, yes, be intimidated, but in a good way, by all their talents
• You will be infected with Google's "can do" attitudes and teamwork models 
• You will be inspired to share your new ideas and expertise with your colleagues, PLN, and the world
• You'll be pushed to be a Moonshot thinker!

And, here's why we should have lots of teacher librarians in this next and every cohort:

• Like I said, don't the characteristics Google is looking for sound like what we know all good teacher librarians should be? Teacher librarians are naturals for this!
• We need Googlers, the other cohort members, and all our fellow educators to see what we TLs do and how much our expertise contributes to positive change.
• A big theme of the academy was the value of team work. We teacher librarians are not just leaders, we are also excellent collaborators and team players. 
• We are experts at spreading the word, both right at home and far and wide, about any new ideas and tools we find valuable. If you love Google like I do, you will learn more about what you love and then share that with the rest of of your TL and educator PLN.
• You'll love the experience! 

The deadline for applications is January 11, 2016, and this academy will be held at Google World Headquarters in Mountain View, February 24 - 26, 2016. I was fortunate to have my academy at Google World Headquarters, and the experience of visiting there and observing Google culture alone was an amazing experience.

Check this link for all the information. And, please contact me if I can help you in any way with your application.

December 3D Printing Challenge-Holiday Cookie Cutters!

During this Thanksgiving week, I am so incredibly grateful to my Personal Learning Network of teacher librarians and other educators. I've also been so grateful to have some time with my family, AND to catch up a bit on planning for my school library! Here is a plan I just drafted for a "December Challenge" to encourage my students and teachers alike to get going with designing for our 3D printers. I'll be sharing it with my staff and students on Tuesday. In the meantime, please share any thoughts or suggestions to help me tweak it. And, as I borrowed it from the great 3drpintingforbeginners.com blog, feel free to borrow this December challenge idea from me.

Once I get my "sample" cookie cutters printed, I'm planning to try putting out some play dough to let students see the cookie cutters in action. I don't have an oven in the library, but perhaps I can also bake some real cookies to bring in before the break.

If this embed of my Google Doc doesn't display well, you can view it at this link.

My #AASL15 Adventures (#myaasl)

For a couple of years now, my "main" method of note-taking from conferences and other events has been tweeting and favoriting tweets by others attending the same event. Here's my summary of my experiences and take-aways at last week's amazing American Association of School Librarians' conference, told through Twitter compiled with Storify, one of my favorite storytelling tools:

EdTechTeam San Diego Summit

I recently had the pleasure of attending the EdTechTeam's San Diego Summit featuring Google for Education in Coronado, CA. I blogged in August about the sessions I presented at the Orange County Summit. While I repeated the same two sessions, "Google Forms: You Can't Live Without Them" and "Become a Google Images Ninja," I made some updates to both of them. So, here are the slides from this Summit:





I learn so much from these professional development events, both as I prepare my sessions and interact with the attendees, and, of course, from all the great sessions presented by others. Two of the items on my "to do" list after this summit are piloting Imagine Easy's new Google Scholar, which will be replacing Easybib.com soon, and sharing Soundtrap with students and teachers at my school.

It was also fun meeting up with some of the members of my 2014 Mountain View Google Teacher Academy, Adina Sullivan, Dan Bennett, Mark Rounds, and Ryan Archer: