Category Archives: School Media Specialist

School Media Specialist

My Report on the EduTech Smackdown Open Mic Night with Joyce Valenza

In one of last week’s blog posts we highlighted EduTech’s Smackdown Open Mic Night with Dr. Joyce Valenza, which took place Monday (December 3rd) at 7:00 PM. Though there were maybe other places I would’ve rather been at 7:00 PM on a Monday :), I have to say I turned out to be very glad to have attended this online (Blackboard Collaborate) event. It was a great OpenMic_SimonScott_TLCafe12experience all around! The “open mic” approach was really quite fun, quick, and refreshing. Attendees that wanted to share a resource with the virtual audience had been asked in advance to create a slide and embed it in the larger slideshow so that they’d have a “spot” in the line-up of presenters. As the night progressed, one-by-one each slide appeared on the screen and the mic was turned over to the presenter.

The host of the evening was Dr. Joyce Valenza, along with a few other (big name) moderators. Throughout the hour-long open mic webinar scads of helpful tools, apps, and other resources were shared. I literally have four notebook pages full of tools/resources with helpful ideas and suggestions for how to effectively utilize them. I anticipate that I may be sharing some of these resources/tools/apps in upcoming blog posts, but know that they ranged from holocaust survivor story websites, to apps like Reflection, to storytelling sites/apps, to poster making resources. Really, the whole gamut was covered here! It was an energizing experience, and I definitely plan to attend similar events in the future.

Lucky for you if you missed it… There is an archived version of the webinar now available! If you participated as well, we definitely want to hear from you! Please share (in the comments area) the ideas and resources you found the most useful!

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Apply today for MILE 2013!

From MILE 2013:

The Minnesota Library Association’s Institute for Leadership Excellence (MILE) will help you discover the leader within yourself and give you tools to learn how to lead effectively today—even if your current position isn’t one of leadership.Leadership

During this four-day conference, selected participants will spend their days in an intimate conference setting with 24 other emerging library leaders from across the state. They will learn about using improvisational humor and creative idea generation to foster creative approaches to problem solving and strategic planning, discover their personal strengths, and learn to lead no matter what their current library position may be. Participants will also become involved in an ongoing mentoring relationship.

Applications for participation will be accepted through Friday, January 11, 2013. Accepted participants will be notified in February.

Learn more and apply today at  http://milethirteen.weebly.com/index.html

School Media Specialist

Digital Learning Day is Coming!

Celebrate the potential of technology in schools!DLD

Digital Learning Day (DLD) will be on February 6, 2013, and  is a great opportunity to highlight the school library program and its role in creating a digitally literate school community. Now is the time to start making plans for you and your students to participate in this nationwide celebration of great teaching and learning!

Participation in Digital Learning Day can be as simple or complex as you like. Some celebrations last one day; others continue all year. And, almost anyone can participate. As long as you are  interested in learning about how digital learning is changing education, you can join in. The link below has materials broken out by specific audience type to keep things simple and direct.

Check out how you can get involved in Digital Learning Day by going to http://digitallearningday.org/participate/

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Minnesota Chosen for National Digital Library Project

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The Minnesota Digital Library was chosen to be a key early contributor to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The groundbreaking project aims to make our nation’s collections of significance to the study of American life digital, searchable, and accessible to the public. Read the press release at MDL’s homepage: http://www.mndigital.org

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Tips on Connecting with the New Congress – From Stephanie Vance

The ALA Washington Office held a webinar on November 19, 2012 in which Stephanie Vance (The Advocacy Guru and keynote speaker at MLA 2012) gave an update on the recent elections and tips on how to connect (about library issues) with the new Congress (113th).  The video was recorded and is available at the following link, which also includes some additional materials referenced in the video.
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2012/11/election-update-and-connecting-with-the-new-congress-video/