The SurRural Librarian

I’m heading off to Chicago for Learning4Life Training & ALA Annual.

After this, I’ll be running Learning4Life workshops around Vermont for school librarians, one in each VSLA region. I’ll have a schedule together by the end of the summer. Learning4Life is the national implementation plan for the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.

It’s my first time at the annual conference and I plan to blog a bit from there if I don’t get lost in what is promised to be a labyrinth of vendors. Gaming pavilion, here I come.

I had a great time speaking at the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award conference on Friday. Here’s my handout with links.

This year I focused more on the comics unit I did with my 5th & 6th grade students. It was a collaboration with our awesome art teacher, Lauren. Each student created a 3-5 page comic (using Comic Life) based on one of the DCF Books. The kids really got into these projects, and I learned a lot about working on longer projects with students. We also discussed the DCF Blog I moderated this year & the wiki I use with my students. I had a super audience, thanks everyone for coming!

The blog got 1,500 comments from Vermont students this year, wow. I was so impressed by some of the insightful & fun comments the kids made. There were plenty of “this book is awesome” type-posts, but many were more articulate and interesting. You can imagine, after 1,500 – I got pretty critical.* I’ll still be maintaining the blog for the committee next year, but Kate Davie from  Blue Mountain Union School will be moderating. Get your clicker finger ready Kate.

*In case you’re wondering, as the moderator I just weeded out posts for inappropriate language or spam, everything else was approved. But as a teacher, I insisted my own students express a “unique thought and opinion”. I also had them return to posts and read what other commenters had to say and “engage in respectful dialog”. For me, it was a great tool for teaching online behavior. My students knew I was the moderator, so a couple of times they asked me why kids in other schools were allowed to write shorter posts – how unfair!

I’ve made a new page (see above) with links to materials from some of the presentations I’ve given recently. The latest is the DCF Conference session I did yesterday in Stowe.

“Using Fun Technology to Promote Student Engagement”

As usual I talked far too much and for too long, but the audience was great and had excellent input & questions. We have so much fun at school with these DCF projects, I was so jazzed to share it all. Thanks to Grace Greene for inviting me to speak!

Chris over at Infomancy posted a link to this great Firefox download manager plugin called DownThemAll. I just snagged every handout from the AASL conference for my perusal in a matter of seconds. Great plugin, great resource. Thanks Chris!

I’m at the VITA-Learn Dynamic Landscapes conference and having a ball.

I told the people at my presentation that they should stop by my blog in order to get a free upgrade to their PBWikis. So – tech people – thanks for stopping by, and thanks for coming this morning!

All you need to do is create an account with PBWiki and let me know the url. Also let me know what your ideas are for using a wiki in your classroom. You can either respond to this post, or email me privately pam (at) marlboroschool (dot) net. I choose a couple lucky winners by the end of June.

I can’t wait to hear about your ideas. You guys were a great audience, thanks.

My favorite piece of snail mail this week came in the form of the annual conference mailing from the ACRL. It’s in Baltimore this year and the Keynote speakers include John Waters *and* Nina Totenberg. Who thought up that duo?

This is the first time I’ve been sad that I left college libraries, I just can’t see asking my school to pay for the trip. I think I might just apply for a scholarship.