A few weeks ago, I attended the 2009 Texas Library Association Conference in Houston. Every spring, TLA provides conference attendees with four days of learning, networking and team building and this year was no different.
I had hoped to live blog each of the sessions that I attended, but limited wireless Internet access spoiled that plan. Instead, I’ll give a brief summary of my activities for the week in this post.
Tuesday, March 31
23 Things: New Technologies Training – I presented at this session along with Dr. Barry Bishop from Spring Branch ISD. Both of our districts have implemented 23 Things programs, first for our librarians and now for other district personnel. We weren’t sure how the attendance would be at 4pm on the “preconference” day, but we ended up with a standing room only crowd in a room with seating for 250! The audience was interested and enthusiastic about our topic. I presented an overview of web 2.0 and why it is important, then Dr. Bishop told how he and his staff organized their program. The presentation was a lot of fun and it was nice to have it over and done with at the beginning of the conference!
Wednesday, April 1
General Session I with Paula Poundstone – Comedian and author Paula Poundstone is the national spokesperson for Friends of Libraries USA. She opened the conference with humor and wit.
Gaming for Instruction – In this presentation, Jenny Levine and Chris Harris discussed the benefits of games as instructional resources. The presenters made a strong case for the inclusion of games in school by citing recent research that shows gaming can reinforce skills that employers want: willingness to experiment, persistence, collaboration, adaptation, prioritizing. Harris has started a game library in his district for board games that are aligned to the curriculum.
Communications Plan for K-12 Databases – In this session, staff from Region 20 described a communications plan they have developed for promoting the online resources that are provided by the state. Their web site offers videos and other promotional materials that can be used to promote these resources.
Thursday, April 2
Brokeback Mountain: An Intellectual Freedom Story – Staff from St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Austin and author John Green described how educators, administrators, parents, authors and community members worked together to protect the rights of students when challenged by censors. Despite the loss of private donor funding, this group held true to the principles of intellectual freedom.
Using the Data You Didn’t Know You Had: TLA’s Public Opinion Poll Results – TLA has just published the results of an extremely successful public opinion poll. In this session, a panel discussed how to use that data to promote libraries.
Texas Bluebonnet Award Luncheon – Author Cynthia DeFelice and illustrator Andrea U’Ren were presented with the Texas Bluebonnet Award for their book, One Potato Two Potato. This book was chosen by the 3rd-6th graders of Texas as their favorite book of the 2008-2009 school year. The award is presented by student representatives from each TLA district and the presentation is always one of the highlights of the conference.
Planning and Hosting a Librarian Mini-Conference – Northside ISD librarians shared in this session how they put on mini-conferences for their librarians’ staff development. During a mini-conference, 8-12 district librarians make concurrent presentations for their colleagues. The session included sample mini-conference sessions about making book trailers, hosting a battle of the books competition, and an American Girl book club.
Friday, April 3
Collaboration 2.0 with Barbara Jansen – Barbara discussed how she uses wikis to collaborate and plan with teachers, resulting in motivating and higher-level research assignments for students. Using a wiki offers one-stop shopping for students’ task and information needs.
Exhibits - Between all of these sessions, time was also spent in the vast and wonderful Exhibit Hall talking with vendors of books, library technology and other library service providers.
There were so many good sessions that I didn’t get to all that I wanted. Some of the ones I missed, but would have liked to attend were:
1. Michael Stephens Talks Hyperlinked Libraries – Michael Stephens is a well-known library blogger (Tame The Web). In this session, he talked about how web 2.0 and user perceptions are changing libraries.
2. Doing Honest Work: A Model for Student Research – Debbie Abilock, founder of NoodleTools, did a presentation on how to get students to use ethical research practices.
3. Top 10 Technologies and Ideas to Improve Library Productivity – Michael Stephens again, this time talking about how technology can help streamline productivity.
4. Tagging Your World with Jenny Levine – an explanation of tagging and its advantages and disadvantages.
5. The Librarian in Black’s Strategies for Staying on Top of the Library World – Sarah Houghton-Jan, the Librarian in Black another prolific library blogger, talked about how to stay current in the library field.
6. Getting to Yes: Finding Web 2.0 in a Filtered World – Chris Harris presentation on how to get access to all the cool web 2.0 tools in a filtered environment.
So much to learn, so little time!
Well, there’s always next year in San Antonio, April 14-17, 2010!