Category Archives: Conference

Conference, Guest Blogger, Tech

TIES Conference Report: Tom Kuhn

This is a guest post from Tom Kuhn, Instructional Technology Specialist/Library Media Specialist at Sartell High School. Need a scholarship to attend a conference or participate in Professional Development? Apply today! 

Attending conferences is an effective method of learning new information, validating current practices, and connecting with other educators. The TIES conference delivered on all fronts this year for me.

In the session “Brick and Mortar Libraries in the Digital Age” by Doug Johnson, he said that libraries used to be where a patron would go to “get stuff.” Now he agrees with Joyce Valenza who said that we need to stop thinking of libraries as grocery stores where one goes to gather supplies but rather as kitchens where one goes to create.

In other sessions the message was more cerebral. The presenters challenged me to think differently about how to present lessons or create projects that were authentic for students so they were working on creating something for an authentic audience rather than just for a grade. One presenter’s question really stuck with me and that was, “Would you want to be a learner in your own classroom?” They suggested activities where students had to collaborate using one device to encourage human interaction.

Other sessions presented more practical options, such as Ken Shelton’s information/media literacy and Google search techniques. I learned about refining searches using site and file type searches among other things. I also learned about a million chrome sites, add-ons, apps, and extensions in one session and digital citizenship/cyber safety options in another. Yet another excellent session provided strategies and tools for teaching how to fight fake news. One of my favorite sessions explored Google’s Art and Culture project. Impressive.

Thank you for supporting all of us that want to attend conferences continuing our lifelong learning passions.

Conference, Guest Blogger, Tech

Report from TIES Conference: Jason Menth

This is a guest post from Jason Menth, STEM Integrationist and Culturally Responsive Teaching Coach at Talahi Community School. Need a scholarship to attend a conference or participate in Professional Development? Apply today! 

I can’t thank CMLE enough for the opportunity to attend and present at the TIES conference in Minneapolis. TIES is an educational technology conference where educators all around our nation come together to connect, develop, and share ideas to advance our students. The theme this year was “What’s Your Story?” With two powerful and impactful keynote speeches from Ken Shelton and Jennie Magiera, I got a new fire to share the story of our students. Over half of the students at Talahi are English language learners and have emigrated from other countries. With our amazing students we have such rich stories at our fingertips to share with our school and community. Educators also understand how a child’s upbringing impacts their experience at school both academically and socially. Being in the role as STEM Integrationist I have the resources to bring these stories to life while also teaching lessons on public speaking, video production, and the purpose of building community.

I also had the chance to present how we incorporate STEM activities in the classroom. My presentation took place in the “playground” area of the conference. This is a place where presenters bring their gadgets and resources they use at school for others to experience and hear how they are implemented. I was very busy with interested professionals and had a chance to create new connections, share our resources, and pick up a few new activities to try. I could go on and on but to say the least this is my favorite conference to attend because of the personality of the conference. The environment was conducive to learning, networking, and sharing knowledge. Most presenters are from our home state and understand the demographic of our schools. I know my students will feel the immediate impact of my new knowledge.

CMLE, Conference

Report from TIES conference: Ryan Hiltner

This is a guest post from Ryan Hiltner, Instructional Technology Specialist at Sartell High School. Need a scholarship to attend a conference or participate in Professional Development? Apply today! 

Attending any conference should help a person to build on previous knowledge and to learn new strategies and techniques. The TIES conference did that and more for me, I was able to realize that some of the implementations we do here are valid as well as having a plethora of new and expansive knowledge available.

I attended sessions on a variety of topics including Google applications, substitute folders, and expanding professional development and many more. The theme of the conference was “What’s My Story” and the two keynote speakers hit on just that. They focused on their stories while tying in the growing media presence that is available to us. While that social media aspect of school can be a scary world for students it is also a powerful medium for them to share their visions and their work with the world.

The biggest take away that I had at the conference is that we should be doing more on demand and online professional development. There are school districts that are much larger than ours that are having their staff go through on demand professional development instead of a day off in the building professional development. This allows the teachers to differentiate more, a concept that we hope is happening for students as well, which in turn makes the time more meaningful and in line with the teachers needs. This is a topic that I plan to try to pursue more in the coming weeks and years so that we can build a system of professional development that is teacher centered.

I would like to thank you for supporting me and helping me to attend this two day conference. I enjoy all of the learning that took place and will implement many of the techniques I learned with the teachers and staff I work with.

Thank you,

Ryan Hiltner

Conference

Registration open for Minitex Technical Services Symposium

NASA Engineers Conduct Low Light Test on New Technology for NASA Webb Telescope (15119297052)

Date and Location

Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Metropolitan State University
Library and Information Services
645 7th Street East
Saint Paul, MN  55106
Twitter hashtag: #techsymp17

Registration Details

Fee: $50.00 (Symposium only)
Fee: $85.00 (MarcEdit workshop only)
Fee: $125.00 (Symposium + workshop)

Schedule

Morning:

  • Keynote –  Breaking Out of the Walled Garden: Lessons Learned in Moving Library Linked Data from Research to Production (Jean Godby, OCLC Research)
  • Panel (Bobby Bothmann, Minnesota State University Mankato; Hannah Buckland, Leech Lake Tribal College; 3rd speaker TBA)
  • Lunch with colleagues

Afternoon 

  • Workshop – MarcEdit 7 Advanced Tools (Terry Reese, creator of MarcEdit, Ohio State University Libraries)

Learn More

Access the full meeting agenda and registration form here. The Minitex Technical Services Symposium is an inaugural conference that will focus on what technical services practitioners face in the near and middle future. Topics will include Linked Data, BIBFRAME, and local practices happening right now in a library near you.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Conference, Guest Blogger

CMLE Scholarship: MLA 2017

This guest post was written by Violet Fox, Metadata Librarian at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University.

The theme for the 2017 Minnesota Library Association’s Annual Conference was “Radical Librarianship,” and I couldn’t have been more excited! I was excited to hear from library workers not only about the great things that libraries do for our users, but also how we as a profession should strive to recognize and address our shortcomings.

I was delighted to be able to present alongside some of my favorite library folks: Hannah Buckland (Leech Lake Tribal College), Tina Gross (St. Cloud State University), and Jessica Schomberg (Minnesota State University, Mankato). In our session, we talked about how centralization in cataloging often prevents libraries from responding flexibly to the needs of their users, and encouraged all librarians to argue for the value of local control in our standards and vocabularies in order to provide respectful and responsive metadata.

A number of MLA 2017 presentations gave me ample material to reflect on. Standouts included Safiya Umoja Noble’s session on how increasing reliance on opaque algorithms results in upholding societal inequity and oppression, as well as an interesting session from librarians at Dakota County Library (Christie Schultz and Lori Veldhuis) on their valuable project to make their world language collection more accessible and attractive to patrons.

Alhough I don’t do usability testing or user surveying in my job, the most exciting session I attended was “UX is Social Change: the Feminist Impact of User Experience Work” by librarians at Metropolitan State University (Christine Larson, Jennifer DeJonghe) and Hennepin County Library (Amy Luedtke, Tony Hirt). The presenters talked about how they use feminist principles within their work, in part by centering patron experiences and recognizing that patrons have knowledge and experience that we don’t. They also discussed their efforts to recruit UX participants intentionally, and acknowledged that it can be uncomfortable to have one’s design ideas critiqued. I very much appreciated the presenters’ unapologetic embrace of “disciplined empathy” in their work, and their presentation encouraged me to find ways to do the same in my own day-to-day work.

I’m grateful for CMLE’s support to attend MLA 2017 and I’d like to encourage Minnesota library colleagues to attend and present at next year’s conference!

Do you want to attend a conference or take part in some other professional development? Apply for a scholarship from CMLE today!