Library Goddess

WOW! Something else from Doug Johnson’s pre-conference. EDUCAUSE and their 7 things you should know about series. There is quick tip sheet on everything…Nings, Flickr, Twitter. Whoa. I know where I can put these to use…wonderful resource: http://www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495

VBF

Going through a notebook of “to do’s” today and finding things I want to post to the blog, for no other reason than just to throw them out there and say that I liked ‘em and I bet you will too. Here’s the first, more to follow, probably.

Doug Johnson talked about this in the pre-conference I attended at ALA:

Stages of Personal Learning Networks Adoption by Jeff Utecht

http://www.thethinkingstick.com/?p=652

Stage 1 Immersion: Immerse yourself into networks. Create any and all networks you can find where there are people and ideas to connect to. Collaboration and connections take off.

Stage 2 Evaluation: Evaluate your networks and start to focus in on which networks you really want to focus your time on. You begin feeling a sense of urgency and try to figure out a way to “Know it all.”

Stage 3 Know it all: Find that you are spending many hours trying to learn everything you can. Realize there is much you do not know and feel like you can’t disconnect. This usually comes with spending every waking minutes trying to be connected to the point that you give up sleep and contact with others around you to be connected to your networks of knowledge.

Stage 4 Perspective: Start to put your life into perspective. Usually comes when you are forced to leave the network for awhile and spend time with family and friends who are not connected (a vacation to a hotel that does not offer a wireless connection, or visiting friends or family who do not have an Internet connection).

Stage 5 Balance: Try and find that balance between learning and living. Understanding that you can not know it all, and begin to understand that you can rely on your network to learn and store knowledge for you. A sense of calm begins as you understand that you can learn when you need to learn and you do not need to know it all right now.

So true! I feel like I’m somewhere between stages 1 and 2. Still. Even though I’ve been putzing around with this Web 2.0 stuff for awhile now. I have gotten to the point where if there is a new one around that I want to try, I drop one. For example, I had a MySpace and Facebook page. Now, I have just Facebook. I cannot keep up with it all and still actually TALK face to face with friends, my husband, my animals. Anytime I venture to my social networks, hours and hours seem to slip by and I haven’t done anything but look at the MySpace pages of people I graduated from high school with and don’t even talk to anymore…so, I have to leave one to accept one, if that makes sense. What’s hard is deciding which one to leave. Oh Web 2.0, you are breaking my heart!

I posted the PLN stages with this permission: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ Haven’t really learned to “cite” that sort of thing, so hope that covers it

VBF

I’m in the Vegas airport waiting for my flight to Atlanta…there is actually FREE wireless in the Vegas airport (FREE is not so often the case in airports, I’m learning), so I’m taking advantage and blogging. Where to start?

First day of ALA (Friday, June 27)

Went to Doug Johnson’s pre-conference, which I have blogged about already.

After the pre-conference, we had dinner at a very good mexican restaurant and then went to the AASL Affiliate Assembly meeting. These meetings are a time when leaders in state associations all over the nation get together and discuss what is going on at the state level. The meeting is actually pretty interesting, because you meet people who are doing the same things you are (in terms of conference planning and such). After this meeting, it was off to bed.

Saturday, June 28

Saturday was a day to walk around the exhibit hall (which is MASSIVE). Many people collect freebies (advanced copies of books, pens, bags, you name it) and mail them home. The post office in the exhibit hall always has a long line. I have never mailed anything home, because I just can’t pick up bunches and bunches of things that I cannot be sure I will ever use, but I can see how it is tempting to do so. I’ve never been a packrat (imagine!) and I think that just stops me from picking things up. It is fun to see what the publishers are giving away. Some of my favorite finds include a galley of a new Mo Willems books (something about a mole….it’s in my suitcase), a stressball in the shape of a chicken, and pens that change colors - I am very easy to please. In addition to walking around the exhibit hall, I attended a session about extending read alouds with “cute” stuff. This session could have been very good and one that should have sent me home with a bunch of new ideas for my storytimes, but instead, it was actually a little boring. A typical “sit and get” where the speakers showed us what they had done, but did not really involve the audience. They tried, I will say that. The session was late afternoon, after lunch and I think a lot of folks were just worn out by then. After that session, Kitt and I took a tour of Hollywood at night. It was neat to see the strip and all of the interesting people who live in Hollywood! However, our driver was a little scary and I am convinced that California has no laws about driving. You can go as fast as you want and cut off as many people as you want and no one will care.

Sunday, June 29

Busy day! Started with exhibits (again). On Sunday, I visited the ASPCA booth where they were having (what I thought would be) an informational session and Paws-and-Books, a program that brings dogs to schools and hospitals so that children can read to them. I’ve heard about this program before. Children who are reluctant and struggling readers tend to do really well reading to dogs because the dogs can’t correct them or try to get them to read faster…basically, much better listeners than adults or other children. When I went to the booth, I was the only person there. I was there and a dog was there along with someone with ASPCA. I got to read to the dog and I LOVED it. It actually made me cry, because I am really missing my own dogs. But, this is a wonderful idea for children and I really hope that I will be able to do something like this in my own school or perhaps SCASL can partner with the SC ASPCA to promote it in South Carolina…I know that at my new school, there is a kindergarten assistant who volunteers with dogs who may be able to do something like this. I can’t wait to find out! On Sunday, we had another AASL Affliate Assemby meeting. This was a voting meeting where we passed different commendations and concerns brought to AASL by the different regions. I also got to go to the Newbery / Caldecott banquet, where I sat next to Kathleen Krull! Best $89 I ever spent. Selznick’s speech was amazing. Dinner was amazing. Awesome experience.

Monday,  June 30

On Monday, things were slowing down. Exhibit hall time, another session to help read alouds be more fun and this one was WONDERFUL! The speaker was dynamic, she had fantastic ideas and I do have lots of new fingerplays, string stories, cut and tells, etc. that I can bring to my storytimes. Exactly what I was looking for the first time around. I also helped stuff bags for the Coretta Scott King Breakfast, which was the next morning. I ended up coming back to the bag stuffing room later in the day to help set up the room for the breakfast with the rest of the SCASL folks (and Valerie Rowe Jackson from RCPL). This was actually really fun. After setting up the room, it was time for dinner and rest - we had to get up at 4am the next morning.

Tuesday, July 1

Coretta Scott King breakfast, which is always wonderful. Kitt and I took tickets and Amanda, Valerie Rowe Jackson, and Ida showed publishers to their tables. It is always so exciting to see authors and illustrators like Ashley Bryan, Christopher Paul Curtis, etc. I’m such a nerd when they are around. After the breakfast, it was time to visit Disney Land. We were only 5 minutes away, after all. Disney Land was fun (like you’d expect it to be). Much smaller than Disney World, but still magical. Rode rides, ate a really expensive plate of fruit and had a great time. After Kitt and I returned from Disney Land, the SCASL folks had a conference planning meeting over dinner. There are lots of wonderful ideas floating around…can’t wait to start announcing all the good stuff! Marty flew in late and then it was vacation time!

Wednesday, July 2 - Sunday, July 6

Marty and I had a GREAT time. I’ll spare the day by day details, as it was a typical Vegas vacation. Went to many hotels to see the fab themes they all have, tried our hands at a little bit of Blackjack and slots, but did not win anything. Marty’s theory is that the casinos are trying to save money just like everyone else. We’ve been there a number of times before (this was my 3rd trip; Marty’s 6th) and the casinos just seemed really tight this time compared to other times. Oh well. Marty is very good at budgeting his spending day by day, so all’s well at the Fort home! There were two big highlights of the trip - Marty surprised me by asking me to marry him again. I got some new bling and everything. Elvis married us at the Graceland Chapel. It was the best thing ever, because Elvis was awesome. We also saw LOVE at the Mirage and it was fantastic. Brought tears to my eyes, even.

That’s my trip out west! As I finish this blog, I am no longer in the Vegas airport, but at home. I’ve done laundry all day long and am happy, happy to be home with my dogs.

Hope your summer / conference experiences / etc. have been as wonderful as mine! If not, there’s still time

VBF

I’m happy that I did not promise to blog everyday at ALA…I’ve been too busy!

I’m still wishing for a tiny, tiny laptop that I don’t mind lugging around, so that is part of the problem. My laptop (borrowed from school) is smaller than usual, but not small or light enough to carry around. When I am at the Convention Center, I have had a good bit of time when I was walking through the exhibits and would have blogged, had I had my laptop. All that to say that I am still in ALA and just dropping a line on the blog to say I will catch up. I’ve had many, many great experiences at this conference. I’ve been to the Newbery / Caldecott banquet (where Selznik gave the BEST speech EVER), I’ve been to meetings, I’ve helped with the Coretta Scott King Breakfast prep (headed to the actual breakfast in a couple of minutes), and I’ve learned from others in my field. Can’t wait to reflect and tell you all about it!

Until later,

VBF

PS- Here’s a note I just posted to the SCASL Blogs! page. Act now! Virtual Library Day on the Hill

Today, I went to Doug Johnson’s preconference, “Eating the 2.0 Elephant One Bite at a Time” or “Dipping One’s Toes in the Social Networking Stream.” The presentation goes by both names, apparently! Wonderful! It was an overview of 2.0 tools and how you can use them in a library or classroom setting. He went over wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and social networks. Then, we had a “tool talk,” where he quickly highlighted some of the other great tools out there like Flickr, Big Huge Labs, Facebook, TeacherTube, etc. I use a lot of these resources, so much of this morning was a quick overview for me, BUT, I did get some ideas on how to take a step back and sort of think about how I am using these tools. I do plan to do a 23 Things professional development with SCASL this year and his presentation really allowed me to think about how to show some of these resources to our late bloomers, so to speak. Those folks who haven’t taken the time to play with blogs and wikis. My favorite new tidbit was the “In Plain Language” show he started each topic off with. Those are perfect little movies to show teachers (or SCASL members) what a tool is and how to use it. I knew about the “In Plain Language” videos, but seeing them today used the way Doug used them really kind of inspired me in the model we’ll use for our 23 Things.

There were a couple of “shout outs” that I got nerdy about during the presentation (since I am a good workshop participant, I did not yell out and get too excited, I must say), but inwardly, I was very excited to see Cathy Nelson’s picture up there when Doug brought up his Skype list and SCASL Blogs! was in his RSS Feed! Yay SC!

Right now, I’m blogging while I wait to go to dinner. We are trying a mexican restaurant that my dad loved when he was out here a couple of weeks ago. After that, Kitt and I have to go to the AASL Affliate Assembly meeting - 8pm - 10pm. Late!

Till tomorrow,

VBF

I’m in California and I could not be a bigger nerd about it. I’ve had a long travel day (not over yet, because I gained 3 hours - woohoo…my dream is to have extra hours added to my day).

So, first sign of me being a nerd was how excited I was to see people walking around with those little Mickey Mouse hats. Then, I actually saw a roller coaster with the Mouse on it. In love.

The trip was uneventful for me. There was a group of Columbia folks who were catching a 9:30am flight out of Atlanta (we landed in Atlanta from Columbia at 9:15am - guess what? They did not make their flight). My connecting flight was always 11:55am. Left ontime. I looked at the skymall catalog for the first time. There’s some crazy stuff in there and I wonder, does anyone actually buy items from it? My favorite, and something I would possibly order was this. I was not happy about the fact that movies are no longer free on the flight. I totally would have brought my Netflix, but oh well. Next time. I did like the flight trivia game where you play against other people on the plane. I did a very, very poor job of playing trivia, but it was fun all the same.

Right now, I’m in the hotel room waiting for Kitt (current President of SCASL) to show up. We will register and perhaps take in some sights and eat dinner. I’m hungry!

I have lots to look forward to this time around (last year’s ALA, I just wasn’t sure what I was doing, looking for, etc….this year, I know and I’m ready!). I’m going to the Newbery / Caldecott dinner, the Coretta Scott King breakfast. I have planned to take time out to take a tour of Hollywood and to check out Disney Land. There are programs I’m really looking forward to…tomorrow is Doug Johnson’s preconference:

Eating Elephant 2.0 One Bite at a Time: Using the Read- Write Web in Classrooms and Libraries
Friday, June 27, 8:00 am - 12:00 pm
New web-based tools are opening exciting collaborative learning opportunities for educators. Find out how teachers and librarians are using wikis, blogs, feed readers, social book marking sites, and other Web 2.0 tools to increase student engagement in this new workshop.

I’m excited about this too (because I love doing the cute stuff in my job):

Sisters’ Act: Learn How to Make Your Library Activities Award Winning and Generate Enthusiastic Readers
Learn how to make your library activities award winning and generate enthusiastic readers. Come along with us and share fun lessons, worksheets, costumes and story time activities. This sister team has written four books that can be used as resources with ready to use worksheets and easy to follow lesson plans. During our program attendees will participate in a sample information literacy based lesson writing activity and receive practical ideas that will generate enthusiastic readers. Our session will be packed full and excitement is our motto.

Very excited!

VBF

My “summer” has been a blur of meetings and places to be at. Sure, it just started, but it feels like I’ve been working since I stopped “working.” Does that make sense? I’ve done a Reading Patrol for my new school, lots and lots of SCASL work and meetings, appointments for the house, etc., etc., but now I am happy to say that today all the way until Monday, I don’t have anything to do! Today I am going shopping with my mom and that’s it. Sure, I’m also going to write some bills and try to accomplish some SCASL business here before I go shopping, but it’s a vacation to me since it is 9:30am and I’m in my pajamas. I’ve been dressed and out of here by now since school got out…so, yay me!

VBF

Here’s the Media Center Messenger article I promised to post. It’s also on the SCASL Blogs! page.

Power Up @ your library!

Conference Wrap Up!

Valerie Byrd Fort, SCASL President Elect

valeriebyrdfort@gmail.com

More than 800 South Carolina school librarians, technology specialists, teachers, and administrators came to Columbia in March for the 33^rd Annual SCASL Conference, Power Up @ your library! To everyone who facilitated, presented, hosted a tour, worked at the Information Booth, took tickets, picked up (or dropped off) a special guest, set up technology, or modeled in our fashion show, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Conference can not happen without the help of SCASL members.

Each year, our conference provides our members a chance to get together and network with peers, as well as learn new ways of doing and thinking. This year was no different – hopefully, you left conference feeling “powered up” for the rest of the school year. Have you checked out that blog you noted or tried to podcast yet? Be sure that before the end of the school year, you try at least one thing you learned at conference. That’s the point! I have already seen my Twitter (www.twitter.com) network expand by at least 12 South Carolina connections – all new because of conference!

I know you are bursting with ideas after listening to presenters like Joyce Valenza, Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson. I know you are rejuvenated after hearing authors like Alan Katz, Eloise Greenfield, Will Hobbs, and Jaime Adoff. I know you are motivated to do more after going to sessions by your colleges. My hope is that you were able to take something away from each and every session you went to. Let us know what you have tried by posting to SCASL Blogs!

We tried some new things this year: online evaluation and volunteer forms, podcasts of book award book talks, a conference wiki (look for directions on how to participate in this issue of Media Center Messenger), and tours on Wednesdays. All of these were ideas and suggestions gathered from reading evaluation forms from past conferences. After reading this year’s evaluation forms, I know that there were many powerful concurrent sessions, even though I did not get to attend any of them. I also know that you loved the authors we had this year and that you want more and more technology sessions – the more “hands on,” the better. The Conference Steering Committee looks at each and every evaluation and thinks about them when planning future conferences. Thank you for your suggestions!

I hope you have a wonderful rest of the school year…start thinking about how you can participate in next year’s conference! We’ll see you in Greenville, March 11-13, 2009.

March 2 was the last time I updated??? Wow. I cannot believe I did not post something about conference here. I will post my official conference wrap up, since it did not get in the Media Center Messenger (these things happen!). I will also post it to the SCASL blog, however, that will have to happen tomorrow. So, I PROMISE…a conference wrap up tomorrow–only 3 months later. It took that long to recover

Anyway, what have I been doing with my time? Professionaly, I’ve been preparing to open a BRAND NEW Library Media Center and preparing to say goodbye to the one I’m in now. Thursday is the last day for students and it’s going to be very hard to leave. I am not going to a new school because I’m mad or upset at anyone, I’m going to a new school because it’s NEW! I can’t wait. I’ve placed my first big book order - what will be the Opening Day Collection. Today, I turned in my magazine order and my supplies are on their way. Those ducks are in a row. I have one box left here to take to my car. Everything else is packed, notes are written for the next person in line. These ducks are in a row. I just need to remember my kleenex.

Personally, I’ve been plain busy. Marty and I bought a dog puppy. We have major HVAC issues in our house (like, right now, fans are blowing to dry water damage…sigh). Etc., etc., etc.

There you have my excuses for not blogging. I twittered the other day that I am going to buy a calendar and put Twitter time in it…may not really do that for twitter, but I AM going to do that for the blogs. I have something exciting planned for SCASL 2008-2009, which involves blogs and the like and I just like the reflection time in blogging…I’m a great former of habits, so once I start putting it on the calendar, I’ll stick to it.

Trust me.

In the meantime, just know that if I don’t update, I’m still around. I’m just busy (or on Facebook, the great time waster that it is).

Love,

VBF

This post is one I started around New Years, I suppose. Never finished it, but in reading it again, seemed like a good thing to post.

 The SCASL conference is VERY close now (9 days?). I hope I have planned a conference that others will leave feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the school year. We have some exciting “new” things going on that I hope go over well. I have really learned so much during the planning of this conference. I’m not saying it’s “changed” me in any way, but I’ve learned alot…I can’t wait to see everyone. I’ll be posting updates on the SCASL Blogs! page throughout the week of all the groovy stuff we have planned. Stay tuned!

VBF 

Professionally, 2007 has been a good year. I’m hoping that 2008 will be a great year.

I’ve done a lot-

1. Became President Elect of SCASL

2. Started planning a conference for SCASL (which will continue into 2008, of course)

3. Taught a course at USC

4. Acted as Chair of the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies Alumni Society

5. Presented countless times to various groups: new teachers in my district, a workshop at ETV, at conferences, to library school classes/students, administration in my district, teachers in my school…my students, of course (little ones at DFES and big ones at USC)

6. Became part of a group working on the ELA support document for the updated academic standards

So much!

A goal for 2008 is going to be to do a few things well instead of a whole lot of things okay. Perhaps others feel like I do all of these things well, but I need to focus. What I’ve listed above is pretty much what will still be going on in 2008, but I’m going to try really hard not to add anything else. What is it about librarians that makes us want to do everything? All of my library friends are this way. We want to do it all!