CLA was a blast! Especially for a student, it was such a great opportunity to network with professionals! My idea of networking is to act like a goofball so I’m memorable – I walked around Sunday afternoon with my QR code attached to my badge! I even told people to scan me.
Here’s a rundown of the sessions I attended.
Friday:
I ran into someone who loves my blog! And thought I was a great writer. Kind of crazy and flattering at the same time.
Saturday:
Setup my Poster Session, which I should be uploading to my website within a week. It went well, probably would have been nice to have talked to more people, but the people that I did talk to were very interested in what I had to show. They also liked that all of the apps that I showed were ones that I use.
Be the Copyright Expert, not the Cop by George Pilling: http://www.georgepilling.com/copyright/index.htm
Very informative about the do’s and don’ts about copyright issues. One of the biggest things that I got out of it was that if you advise someone that what they are doing is a copyright violation but they still do it, you should make a note somewhere that you had advised them against doing so – cover all your bases to not get in trouble yourself!
Web 2.0: Focus on Achievement by Doug Achterman: http://www.slideshare.net/dachterman/achterman-csla-web20-5770171
While the idea of using web2.0 tools for educational uses is kind of overdone, what was brought up still felt pretty fresh (at least to me, since he integrated a lot of teaching stuff that I never thought about) – like the concept of Into, Through, Beyond. There was an example he presented, in which he used a Google form as part of an assignment – have the kids submit their resource, annotate it, then put it in the form. You then host the form so that it’s visible – similar to what was done with the Anna Karenina project but without using the forums.
Digital Citizenship by Lesley Farmer: http://k12digitalcitizenship.wikispaces.com/
An entire session on how to ensure that students, parents, patrons, anyone use technology appropriately. The resource page is RIDICULOUSLY long and this felt very much in line with what I saw at Internet Librarian about the concept of Transliteracy. I really liked the message of the presentation: engage students in using technology appropriately by getting them involved in documenting the community or using the technology for the benefit of the community.
Saturday night, I participated in this thing called Battledecks, in which our presentation skills are tested against other professionals. As it turns out, I was the only non-professional who volunteered – everyone else has been a practicing librarian for years and have been doing presentations for a long time as well.
Sunday:
Listened to Steven Johnson discuss innovation! Steven Johnson is the author is a book called Everything Bad Is Good For You, about how todays popular culture is actually helping society rather than ruining it.
Take the Helm of Handheld Technology by Jade Winn
This was a great session for someone like me, mainly because I got to hear about firsthand experience regarding mobile reference – answering questions on your web enabled device. GREAT and engaging speaker – mainly a way for me to impress her with my reference/tech skills.
Overall, it was a great experience. Can’t wait to go to ALA this year!
I have two conference proposals to work on…man, I’m becoming a conference addict!