On Nov. 19-21, I presented a break-out session at the Virginia Association of School Librarian's annual conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. In my session, I used Emaze to share four tools to create a more a dynamic library website for both parents and students: Thinklink, Touchcast, Booktrack, and Bookopolis (see presentation above). At first, I was a little nervous about speaking in a room of professional librarians. After all, I am still training to become a librarian, but any fears I had vanished when I saw so many warm and friendly faces, many of whom approached me afterwards and welcomed me to the field. Once my presentation was over, I was able to relax, enjoy the conference, and begin collecting ideas and inspiration from my peers.
I attended many break-out sessions, but one of the best was a session hosted by Jen Spisak from Hungary Creek Middle School entitled “Creating Multimedia Learning Stations to Integrate Content and Skills.” When Spisak plans multimedia stations, her first step is determining the purpose of the station with the collaborating teacher, and together they establish the theme, determine topics, and establish who will develop the station activity. Spisak says she prefers to find the resources and have the teachers provide the content and questions. She recommends searching for the most difficult to find resources first and typically uses the following order: educational apps for mobile devices, videos, books/databases, and then websites. She also finds 30 second music clips that match the theme of the lesson to use as transition music as students change stations. Because she includes both pre and post assessments in all of her station activities, she is able to show students’ growth. At the end of her presentation, Spisak shared examples of her station activities that I found very helpful as well as a plug for her book, Multimedia Learning Stations: Facilitating Instruction, Strengthening the Research Process, Building Collaborative Partnerships. By using stations, Spisak is helping students become skilled researchers and critical thinkers. As a future librarian, I will definitely use her system as a model as I begin crafting my own station activities.
In other sessions I attended, Rebecca Thomas from Woodbrook Elementary School discussed how she used Minecraft EDU in her library program to collaborate with other teachers in "Can You Dig It? Minecraft in the Classroom." You can read more about this on Longwood's website as well as on the Virginia Children's Book Festival website. Finally, author Steve Watkins made a strong case for "Why (and How) Librarians Should Write Their Own Books." Steve is the author of the Ghosts of War series, Juvie, and What Comes After. In his presentation, he offered humorous and relevant advice about how librarians can enter the publishing business.
In all, the experience was very memorable for me, and I can't wait to go back next year!
