Today's the day...

For all the events... This morning I had a pretty good workshop on collaboration: Maximizing Your Impact. There were decent lesson plan examples that could help me. An ongoing issue I have though with information literacy attempts is that I haven't found a good curriculum set for high school students. Most of the stuff I encounter is for the younger-aged student (middle-ish) or the college student. Has anyone in high school found a way to not re-invent the wheel?

On another note, I got Francesca Lia Block's autograph this morning on my very own copy of Weetzie Bat. Next up, I am going to hear her speak (or read). Then it's off to hear Greg Mortensen (Three Cups of Tea). Pictures to follow this evening!

Nothing official to do today...

Well, as there was nothing official to do today, I spent the day planning my attack. It took considerable time and I haven't really gotten it worked out yet. There is always too much to do. I am pretty excited for tomorrow. My mom has put me in charge of getting my picture taken with Greg Mortensen and I am stoked to get my picture taken (or maybe just a dorky autograph) with Francesca Lia Block. I am so in love with Weetzie Bat. My favorite book in her series though is definitely Missing Angel Juan. Other highlights for tomorrow are a workshop on information literacy collaboration and if I can squeeze it in a workshop on the Millennials and one on ethnic literature. The title of that one has evolved from Street Lit to Bestsellers of a Different Color. I like the second title better.

Yesterday was a pretty amazing day of presentations from some of the big names in diversity and librarianship. I got to meet my personal library celebrity, Sandra Rios Balderamma. I read many of her publications when I was doing research for school. At one point after I had completed my last culminating paper (Topic #2 2005, about the diversity among library employees), I wrote her an email to tell her how much her writing meant to me in the process of my experience in school. She wrote me back with a gracious reply and thanks. So, it was pretty awesome to meet her to say the least.

The pre-conference was a pretty small group of people, 30 or so. It was a great thing to be able to have conversations with the presenters and with each other about our experiences with diversity work. I shared with the group about my own attempts at diversity work and they were incredibly supportive. It was pretty powerful that the people I look up to professionally applauded my attempts to create a more accepting environment.

So far, so good...

Jeez.... I am here.

Well, I made it via the ATL. So far so independent and fancy free. I checked in and snagged one of three hard-wired internet rooms. (The wifi is acting funky here at the Best Western: Stovall Inn. Beware.) I moseyed to the 7-11 and got myself some cereal and milk for tomorrow morning (mmm... Grape-Nuts), checked in with the local labor dispute folks about the Garden Walk development, and I took some photos for this here blog on the way home. Look, they put our name on the sign...!

I also connected my bloggie and my Twitter to the ALA wiki. It was great fun. I am coming to realize that this blogging stuff takes time to do well even with a snazz-o-rama computer and DSL in the hotel room. I like it. Nerd-out!

Forever off topic!

I hope to finish the 2.0 lessons in the near future. The last few seem to have not gotten done yet now that it is summer. But they will. Soon-ish.

In the meantime, I am going to the ALA conference tomorrow. So, I think I am going to use this here blog to do what lots of other folks will be doing too, blog my experience. Woohoo! Stay tuned.

#19 week 8... Library Thing.

I had had a Library Thing account for a while. As was the case with many of these 2.0 applications, I had created an account but hadn't explored the many features. Thanks to the 23 things group for outlining different ways to noodle around. It has been helpful.

That being said, I looked at the review features, the popularity of the title, and a few other things. I think most helpful for me are the suggested reading lists generated by Library Thing. Because I am always looking for new ways to develop our collections and forever making wish-lists, this feature is especially helpful. I would love to make my catalog more accessible and user-friendly.

#18 week 8... as posted from Zoho Writer!

One of the problems our students have is document compatibility. They create documents at home in some program other than Microsoft Word and get to school only to find that all their hard work turns into symbols, bleeps and bloops. These online word processing programs could go a long way to solve this problem. They also provide an equitable solution to some digital divide issues. Can't afford to buy Word? Then you can use Zoho or Google Docs. One thing that I discovered last week is that one can create a document in Google Docs and save it (download it) in a .doc format. This is pretty amazing. I discovered it as a friend of mine wanted to create a resume and was concerned about file compatibility since she didn't have Word. We noodled with it and made it work. It was a pretty revelatory experience (for one who deals with compatibility issues and teenagers on an almost daily basis). I haven't explored Zoho yet to determine whether or not a similar feature exists or not. We'll see.

#17 week 7... curriculum connections wiki.

Well, no longer can I really complain about the lack of ideas about how to use the 2.0 applications. They are here in the calcurriculum wiki. There are some great ideas. Just reading them gets my brain going and thinking about what we could do and how things could work at our school. The thing that gets in our way is time and willingness to try new things, but that's a different story all together. It's great to have a place to share the ideas. I just looked at the photo editing site, Dumpr... creating coloring sheets/ sketches from photos... how fun!