Tales from a Loud Librarian

For the past several weeks, I have been using free time to prepare for the presentation that I plan to give at the Louisiana Library Association's annual conference on March 9th. In past presentations, I have just touched on all the digital tools that I use when I collaborate with the teachers at my school, but this time, I wanted to be a bit more specific. I wanted to give concrete examples of the types of collaborations that I do and exactly what kinds of resources I include in the various tools that I create to share with students. I am a blatant thief and love learning about new things when I attend conferences. Once I hear about something new and exciting, I figure out how I can incorporate it into my bag of tricks and make it my own. My hope with this presentation is that others will find uses beyond what I do to invigorate their own library program. I wanted to save you some time if you did not want to view the whole presentation.  When I make a presentation, I usually ...

I presented twice This past Saturday I traveled to Lafayette, LA to present at the first ever LASL Fall Summit. In the past, the Louisiana school librarians had a mid-winter conference. It was always scheduled in late January or February every other year, but even in Louisiana, the weather could get in the way during the winter. Fog and ice could make it difficult for people to travel the state to attend a one day conference. In 2014, I got half-way to Lafayette and had to turn around because the fog made it impossible to cross the Atchafalaya Basin that lay between me and my destination.  Why did Susan cut off my hand? I do have another one. The attendees in the first session My presentation was entitled, "Where Reading and the Web Collide." My focus was to give websites and apps that librarians, teachers, parents, and students could use to enhance the reading experience. Even though I only serve students in grades 6th-12th, I tailored this talk to K-12 ...

I wasn't planning to present at LLA this year. After presenting at LACUE in December, I asked Kelly if she would make the same presentation with me for the school librarians at the LASL Mid-Winter one day conference to be held in Lafayette, LA on a Saturday in January. Kelly agreed, reluctantly, because she really didn't want to give up a Saturday, but I really did not have to twist her arm very hard. I picked her up on January 25th at 6AM. We took I-10 until we found it closed due to the thick fog. We didn't worry because we had wanted to take highway 90 anyway. When we reached Gray which is a very, very small town in the middle of southern Louisiana, we could not go any farther. The state police closed 90 because of the density of the fog. Now what? We went into the Waffle House to regroup. It was a bit surreal but, the waitresses and other diners tried to figure out a way for us to reach our destination. Until all the roads reopened, there really was no way to get t...

The beginning of my prezi Yesterday, I presented at the annual Louisiana Library Association Conference in Baton Rouge.The title of my presentation was: " Become a 21st Century School Librarian: Learn How to Harness Digital Resources" I wanted the visuals that I used to look really spiffy, so I asked a student to help me. Mark Parfait, a ninth grader, created a wonderful Prezi out of the text and images that I gave him. Open here to see that Prezi . Since collaboration is a big part of 21st century skills, I was modeling true collaboration between a student and a teacher. Smiling, presentation is done I know that I had over 48 attendees because that was the number of bookmarks that I created with a link to the handout for my presentation, and I ran out of them. I felt terrible about that because I always hate it when I don't get the resource packet that a presenter has created. I built a wiki for all of those  resources. Click below to open the wiki. This...

Today I got an email from the president of the Louisiana Library Association (LLA). Of course, I wasn't the only one to receive it. She sent it out to all members of LLA who are subscribed to the listserv. During our fight in December and early January to ask BESE not to change the language about libraries in the Louisiana handbook for school administrators, Bulletin 741 , I was working with the Louisiana Association of School Librarians (LASL). I am glad to see LLA on board with the movement to keep librarians in all schools. The president of LLA wrote a great letter imploring all librarians to begin a grass roots effort to write to local newspapers and state legislators about the importance of librarians in schools.  I am posting it in its entirely here. If you live in Louisiana, we need your help to spread the good word about school librarians.  February 4, 2013 My dear colleagues, In lieu of LDOE and BESE recent actions, we have much work to do to get Lou...

BESE. in Louisiana, wants to amend its bulletin that guides all school districts. In so doing, BESE will allow districts to decide if a library should be staffed and if it should be staffed by a certified librarian. We need to take action and ask BESE to require a certified librarian in every school. Please read what the Louisiana Association of School Librarians (LASL) has suggested on how you can help. Click here to open the LASL plan of action .

2012   LAMP Keynote entitled -- define: Collaboration LAMP Tour: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Rayne, and Ruston Find the wiki filled with resources here Here is the URL:  http://bit.ly/LALAMP2012   Lisa Valence is on the left and I am standing on the right This was taken after we finished the last presentation of the tour in Ruston, LA On September 10th, I started my tour across Louisiana as the keynote speaker for the  2012 LA LAMP  conference. LAMP is an acronym for Louisiana Association of Library and Media Professionals. It is free professional development designed for school librarians that travels to the librarians throughout the state. The vendors set up exhibits in the morning, and half the attendees attend the exhibits and half attend the keynote speech, and then they switch. Right before lunch, the vendors and keynote speaker pack up to go to the next venue. The local librarians have planned the professional development sessions for...

Click the picture above to enlarge it so that you can read our bios www.lalamp.org On September 10th, Lisa Valence and I will start our tour across the state of Louisiana to speak to librarians and hopefully a few teachers, too. We begin at home in New Orleans, then travel to Baton Rouge on the 11th, Lafayette on the 12th and finally, Ruston on the 13th. At each site we will give a 75 minute presentation two times. For the last three years, I have been the site coordinator for LAMP in New Orleans. I suggested that the keynote speaker this year should talk about collaboration. The powers that be said that was a great idea and that I should give the speech. If I decided not to give the keynote, then whoever is selected could pick the topic that interested them. I knew that for me to give a good presentation on collaboration, then I needed to have one of my collaborators with me. Lisa Valence teaches middle school English at PFTSTA. We have created some really excellent lessons over...