NECC has begun in Atlanta GA

I’m already in my first session at NECC. I am attending Leslie Fisher’s “Almost All New Return of the Gadgets.” She will showcase lots of bells and whistles, like iPods, geofinders, unique flashdrives and more. I will repost letting you know a laundry list of the gadgets that are shown. I love coming to her sessions, and if you ever get a chance to hear her, plan too. Even though many of the gadgets are things I’ll never buy or experience, she is positively hilarious and fun to listen. She comes across as a perpetual party girl, but when it gets down to the nitty gritty, you can tell she’s a pro at pretty much everything and anything. Man I’d love to have her job. Man I’d LOVE to work with her.

Enough about Fisher. If you are interested in following or tracking conference happenings, you can! Technorati and Hitchhickr are both tracking posts about sessions. Hitchhickr offers a flickr (image stream) portal to see pix. I’m even in a few for the preconference/unconference they called the Edublogger con!

I had intended to post NECC information on my TechnoTuesday Blog, but it seems EduBlogs is having some difficulties the last few days, so apologies up front for using SCASL Blogs! as the forum for this.

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necc2007

The LMS Portfolio

What should be in the professional portfolio? How do you think it should be arranged?? I wrote an absolute epistle in a response to another blogpost today from a favorite (Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog). And those who know me know I can get really wordy….maybe that’s why i never could get the A in senior English? But I am curious about his question.

In googling this, I did find one who dares to use the www for her portfolio & resume. Her name is Tanya Grant. See what she has created to serve in this capacity.

What tools are LMS’s using today to secure employment? Do you use a portfolio? Is it in a binder, or is it electronic? And above all else, what’s in it, how is it organized, and why?

Planning to revamp your Library’s Website?

What makes an exemplary school library media website? If you’re planning to revise your school library media website this summer, be sure to look at Joyce Valenza’s blog. She recently submitted her dissertation on the topic and is getting ready to defend it. She looked at how school library media websites have been changing since 1996. Here are the questions she was hoping to answer with her study:

1. What models of exemplary practice exist in school library websites?
2. What common features are presented in sites representing exemplary practice?
3. What common organizational structures and design characteristics are employed in exemplary school library sites?
4. From the models observed in sites identified as exemplary practice, can a functional descriptive taxonomy of features be developed?
5. How are school library sites evolving? How do the features and services offered by exemplary sites in 2006 differ from the state-of-the-art of the randomly selected sites last studied by Clyde in 2002?
6. To what extent do exemplary school library websites present features devoted to: information access and delivery, learning and teaching, and program administration, as expressed in the context of the current national standards document Information Power (AASL & AECT, 1998)?

She discusses what she found in several posts–so far–and I’m sure there will be more. Interesting findings and some great ideas for your own work here!

Here’s just a quote she made after reflecting on her dissertation topic about her own site–which I think is EXCELLENT!!

“I must rethink my website. My study convinced me that it is time to do some shifting. I am going to spend some of my summer making the site more interactive. I am going to move many of my pathfinders to wiki format to facilitate easy updates and to encourage collaboration. Pathfinders ought to be wikis!” (quoted from Joyce Valenza on her end of the year reflections via her blog.)

Yes, Joyce is the “founding mother” of TeacherLibrarianNing, and she’s also just added an LM_NET annex, a wiki-based site where you can upload and download files. (You can’t do that in LM_NET so check out the annex.) Some good stuff there already from some of our colleagues who are willing to share! Booklists, lesson plans, handouts, pathfinders, etc.

Thanks Donna of Sunlink Blog. You are moving way up on my blog radar as a favorite!

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Doug Johnson’s “Demonstrating Our Impact: Putting Numbers in Context”

These articles appeared in Leading & Learning Magazine in the Dec-Jan 06/07 Issue and the March 07 issue. How does your media center stack up? Do you document your impact? Take some time read through them. Doug has made them available on his website, as well as many other contribution to our school library world. He wrote about these in a posting on his Blue Skunk Blog today, a personal favorite of mine. He’s listed in my “The Experts” folder of my Bloglines account. There are references to other writings and contributions to school libraries as well, and I know my June reading calendar is really filling up!

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