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Each year we are very fortunate to be able to send about half of the 48 librarians in our district to the Texas Library Association annual conference. It is always a great time of learning and relationship-building for our group. When the conferees return, that learning and relationship-building continues as we all meet to hear information about some of the sessions they attended.

This has always been one of my favorite staff development sessions that we do each year, but I really look forward to it since we changed the format last year. In the past, the conference attendees made brief presentations on the sessions they attended to the whole group. While the information was interesting, two hours of “sit and get” wasn’t very much in keeping with current educational best practice.

Last year, we changed the format to a mini-conference, where participants can choose six out of twelve presentations that they would like to attend. Yesterday’s meeting consisted of sessions on virtual field trips, the state database program, gaming in the library, Second Life, digital booktalks, and more. Our schedule for the afternoon is posted here.

What I love about this meeting is the creativity that is shown by the presenters. We give them some very minimal guidelines and off they go! Yesterday we saw tic-tac-toe, interactive Powerpoints, games, discussion, a Promethean desktop flipchart, etc. all used as ways to involve the audience and make the presentation interactive. It’s so much fun to see all of the learning and sharing going on!

Thanks to all who presented yesterday. You all did a fantastic job!

The K-12 Online Conference is a conference by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice. A goal of the conference is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape.

This free virtual annual professional development event spans the next three weeks. Presentations appear in the form of streamable or downloadable audio or video clips, with each workshop lasting about 20 minutes. Presentations are archived so that you may return to them later or visit sessions from previous conferences. Scheduled live chats allow participants to also connect real time.

Read more about it on Joyce Valenza’s blog then give it a try!

This is part 2 of Teri Lesesne’s presentation at Region 10 on Monday.

On Monday, I was fortunate to be able to spend the whole day listening to booktalks presented by the master – Dr. Teri Lesesne of Sam Houston State University. Teri talked about books and reading to a rapt audience of teachers and librarians at Region 10. I think we all left amazed at the amount of reading/listening that she does, as well as her ability to recall in detail so many plots right down to individual character names. I also left with a list of books to read as long as your arm!

Here is part one of the slideshow from the presentation, which she shared in her blog today:

In addition to learning about all kinds of young adult books, I was also interested to learn about Teri’s experience with the Amazon Kindle. She even passed it around and let us look at it. If you’re not familiar, the Kindle is Amazon.com’s e-book reader. It can hold up to 200 books (or more with an SD card) and only weighs about

10 ounces! The screen is hard to explain, but it is just like reading on paper – no glare at all. There is also no backlight, so you can read it inside or in the sunlight. It includes a dictionary you can access as you are reading and a “clippings” feature where you can highlight passages and save them. This little gadget is definitely going on my Christmas list!