Tag Archives: News

School Media Specialist

Paul Beckermann Selected as 2012 Outstanding Minnesota High School AV/Media Coordinator

CMLE’s Governing Board President, Paul Beckermann, has won another award for his outstanding service to students, faculty, and staff at Dassel-Cokato High School!! Congratulations to Paul for this exciting honor!

From Alpha Video….

Minneapolis, MN, December 14, 2012 – Alpha Video is pleased to announce that Paul Beckermann, Media and Digital Learning Specialist at Dassel-Cokato High School, has received the 2012 Outstanding Minnesota High School AV/Media Coordinator Award.

Beckermann was recognized for the effective and innovative implementation of audio, video and media technology. He has 18 years teaching experience as an English instructor plus seven years experience as the Media and Digital Learning Specialist. Some of his accomplishments include:

  • Acting as coach and advisor for DCTV – a weekly TV news broadcast, produced by students for students.  Paul_AVaward
  • Designed technologically equipped classrooms to include mounted LCD projectors, interactive whiteboards and updated computers with document cameras, microphones, headphones and an improved software collection.
  • District Trainer in Moodle.
  • Introduced eBooks to the school library collection.
  • Current President Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange.
  • Chaired or participated in numerous technology committees for the school district.

Beckermann received his award on December 9, 2012 at the annual TIES Education Technology Conference during the Technology Leadership Awards Banquet.  Scott Tronson, Alpha Video Marketing Manager, presented the award to him.

Commenting on the award, Beckermann said, “I have had the opportunity to meet other high school AV/Media coordinators from schools across the state, and I’m continually impressed with how they have effectively and innovatively implemented audio, video and media technology in their schools. Their leadership and hard work is helping to transform classrooms and to provide students and staff with the tools and training needed to be successful. It’s an honor to receive this award and to represent this great group of professionals.” He also thanked his wife, Pamela Beckermann, who works at the Dassel-Cokato Middle School as a Digital Learning and Media Specialist.

The program was sponsored by Alpha Video, CastNET, Bosch/ElectroVoice, Kramer Electronics, Samsung, Panasonic and VBrick.

About Alpha Video
Alpha Video & Audio has been a professional video systems provider and integration specialist since 1970. Alpha specializes in products, systems and services for video and digital media content creation, distribution and management. Alpha Video is headquartered at 7711 Computer Ave, Edina, Minnesota 55435. (800) 388-0008 or (952) 896-9898. www.alphavideo.com

Academic, General, Public, Special

We’ve Learned: Staffing News and Updates from Around the Region

We’ve Learned… is designed to keep our readers informed about news concerning personnel in CMLE libraries/media centers. Please keep us informed of any “happenings” regarding staff members in your area so that we can include them in the next write-up! Happenings can include: changes in staffing, awards, honors… you get the idea!

  • Ron McGriff, Faculty Librarian, has resigned his half-time position at Pine Technical College with an effective end date of January 31, 2013. This will allow him time to assist in this college transition. McGriff began work at the college as a consultant in 2003 to assist in library service planning including the relocation of services into a renovated space in the main, campus building. In 2005, he was appointed to the position of faculty librarian. He will continue in his consulting business, now in its 28th year, of evaluating and planning spaces and services for all types of libraries in Minnesota and elsewhere.
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

We’ve Learned: Staffing News and Updates from Around the Region

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We’ve Learned… is designed to keep our readers informed about news concerning personnel in CMLE libraries/media centers. Please keep us informed of any “happenings” regarding staff members in your area so that we can include them in the next write-up! Happenings can include: changes in staffing, awards, honors… you get the idea!

  • Jonathan Carlson is the new Science Librarian at the College of St. Ben’s/St. John’s University. Former Science Librarian, David Wuolu, has moved to Collection Development.

Please be sure to share with us any changes, updates, or exciting things happening in your library!

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!