AASL Reflection

I was lucky enough to attend the AASL this year in Columbus, OH.  I'd been to a couple of other national conferences so I knew the energy and focus that was going to be required as well as the fun and excitement I was going to experience.  I learned more than I'll ever be able to implement.  Here are my main take aways:
The opening session was presented by Heidi Hayes Jacobs who challenged us with the question,

"What decade are we preparing our students for?" 
There were a few things that she implored us to do:

• Sign up for Twitter (find me @SaraCoo08365060) s to connect with other professionals and read about current happenings.
• Have students view and create quality media as part of their learning and sharing all the time.
• Carve out space at school for a green screen (I'm going to paint a green wall in a library corner), recording room and Skype area.
• Have students create their own websites where they can store all of their work.

Her talk was inspiring and left me wanting to get back to school and get started!

In the break out session "Be a Research Rockstar!" Sarah Scholl and Sarah Wein (I'm going to do a research project on the most popular librarian name and my hypothesis is that Sara(h) is the winner) walked us through their collaborative research project,

Challenge and Change using Guided Inquiry.  The website has the presentation slides and the handouts that will give you an idea of this exciting research project that led kids through finding, researching and awarding a notable person who has faced challenge and changed the world around them.   It was obvious that the project led to deep and meaningful learning for the kids involved.  The presentation was a reminder of the importance of collaboration between teachers and librarians and a reminder to create research projects that go deeper into Bloom's Taxonomy instead of "research" being questions the students can easily find the answers to in an online search.

Joyce Valenza presented on leveraging your library with evidence.  I am going to try these two ideas this year:

• Have students film (with and iPad or their phones) "their" library.  The students walk around the library filming their favorite sections and telling about what the space means to them.  These can be posted online, shown during staff meetings, sent to administrators and politicians.  
• Create a "focus group" of students and prepare questions for them to answer about the library.  Film the discussion and use it to implement change in the library based on their discussions.

THe exhibit hall was filled with vendors and lines for free books.  I enjoyed getting to know librarians from around the country as we waited in line.  I brought home a whole suitcase full of free books, signed books and ARCs.  It was invigorating and meaningful.  I'm planning on going to Phoenix in 2017, hope to see you there!