Raising Achievement & Closing Gaps Conference: Day 1

Thoughts and Happenings:

1. Someone should come up with a better name for the conference.

2. My old principal from Riverside HS, Mrs. Peebles, now works as a bigwig at the Department of Public Instruction.

3. I sat in a focus session for three hours without getting even one practical idea to take back and implement at my school. Not even one. I always get great ideas at library conferences. What gives?

4. All presenters who use lapel mics should be forced to sit through a lapel mic training session so that they know not to hold the whole unit right next to their mouths, thereby giving participants raging headaches from the excruciating volume level and amplification of presenter's bodily functions such as breathing and swallowing.

5. Cindi Rigsbee, North Carolina Teacher of the Year (and National Teacher of the Year Finalist!), spoke at the opening session, which was cool. She taught my brother in middle school. The truth was confirmed when she mentioned that her new shoes were "bo-bos," according to her students, which is a term I learned from my brother when he was in middle school.

6. I'm pretty sure "conferees" is not a word, although it is I suppose an attempt at cleverly shortening the term "conference attendees." Mostly though, it's annoying and not particularly clever.

7. "21st Century Learning" continues to be a buzz-phrase. If we're so concerned about it, WHY ARE WE CUTTING MEDIA ASSISTANTS AND TECHNOLOGY TEACHERS IN GUILFORD COUNTY? WHY?? WHY??? Ahem. Sorry. I feel strongly about that.

8. Also, a recurring theme is that in order to close gaps, children need equitable access to resources. I'll tell you what, I just finished writing four enormous papers involving equitable access to resources. Guess where a lot of the resources are: THE LIBRARY. Guess how students gain equitable access to many of those resources: THE LIBRARY STAFF. So, again, WHY ARE WE CUTTING THEIR JOBS??? Ahem. Sorry again.

9. No vendors. What? No vendors means no free stuff and no door prizes and no teachers buying vendors' stuff. No vendors is bad news for everyone.

10. If I'm in your hotel for a conference, you should give me free wifi, whether I actually booked a room or not.

The Many Faces of Scratchy Pendleton

Here's what Scratchy looked like until this morning:


Here's what he looks like now:


It was time for the springtime shave, avoiding weeks of ferocious shedding and painful clump-pulling. Unfortunately, spring weather is still a few weeks away, so I think we have an indoor cat on our hands. He's real pitiful walking around the house shivering.

They left his fluffy head, fluffy tail, and fluffy feet. I like his fluffy feet the best:


Ty asked the vet how old he is and what kind of cat he might be. I don't think they know how old he is, but he got the "senior cat" treatment. The vet says he's probably a smoke Persian, smoke being the coloring that causes him to turn white when shaven.


Still the same old Scratchy.

School Libraries May Soon Be History?

The Rhino Times recently published an article about school libraries. Several folks came up to me to ask about the situation for school libraries after reading the article. You can read the article, my response to the article, and the author's response to my response here.

Learning from Librarians

A couple of weekends ago, I headed out of town for the 4th Annual Librarian to Librarian Networking Summit at East Carolina University. (Cute yet sarcastic comment from dad-in-law: "A librarian conference three hours away on a Saturday? That sounds exciting.") Although I wasn't quite sure what to expect, I came back with some great new ideas to try, and I was extremely impressed with the event itself. If you're in the library field and have a chance to go next year, take the opportunity if you can. Nothing beats hearing what works from your own colleagues, and lunch was really good.

Why I recommend the event:

• attention to detail: Everything from registration to scheduling to lunch was planned and executed in a smooth, effective, efficient manner. Anyone who has ever been to any number of professional conferences knows that this is not often the case.
• schedule: I left Durham at 6:00 a.m. to be in Greenville on time, so I was about ready to leave when the summit ended around 3:30. Even so, since the event was about the length of a school day with a nice lunch break to boot, I didn't feel exhausted or overloaded, but it was still worth the drive.
• speakers: Most of the speakers were either media specialists from North Carolina or media-friendly folk from the NC Department of Public Instruction. I always want to hear what works for other media specialists above anyone else, so I loved the fact that most of the small session speakers were my colleagues. The featured speakers were an author (Michael Dahl - not incredibly well-known, but solid) and Ann Martin, the president (!) of AASL, so that was a treat too.
• price: You can't beat it for $25. The summit coordinators did a great job of getting sponsors for the event to reduce costs for participants. Lunch, breakfast, and snacks were provided in abundance, and we got all kinds of great free stuff, including a book by the featured author and the ubiquitous "conference bag" to add to the collection.

What I brought back home:

• Suggestion Box: I know this is kind of a "No, duh" thing probably for many of my colleagues, but I'm pretty new, and I don't have a Suggestion Box in my library yet. But I will now. And I even created a Virtual Suggestion Box on the media center web page.
• staff development plan: February, being Black History Month, tends to be my biggest month in the media center for research projects. I am in the process of planning a short staff development session for the 4th and 5th grade teaching teams that will include the topics of research process, avoiding plagiarism, research projects that discourage plagiarism by their very nature, evaluating web sites, why Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, etc. And I can also advertise myself as a wonderful collaborative partner for research projects and share my African American History pathfinder for our library materials. Should be fun!
• leadership frames: Ann Martin talked about four frames for leadership (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) and how to incorporate each when leading and advocating for the media department. Hopefully, some of these ways of thinking will bring some clarity to what I say about the program.

Next year, maybe I'll be a presenter. I am really having a good time with my media crew kids at school this year, and I think it might be a cool idea to share. Our school is pretty unique regarding how we run clubs, and the kids are just having a blast and learning a ton.

For those new to the library field (like me!) or maybe working toward the field, my top piece of advice is to participate in professional learning whenever possible. It may take some time, travel, and sometimes (sigh) money out of your own pocket, but it's so worth everything! So go ahead and be a big library geek; you won't regret it.

New Frontiers for 2009

I have several new ideas going for 2009, both on my own and professionally. January through March will be the final sprint towards finishing my National Boards Portfolio, but I'm hoping it won't be an all-consuming endeavor. Here are a few other things I'd like to be working on:

1. Diving into Podcasting, Albeit Slowly

As of yesterday, I have a podcast over at 1ytb.blogspot.com. At my church, we are all reading through the Bible in one year, according to The One Year Bible plan. So, I'm podcasting the readings for each day. I looked around for some podcasts by others doing the same thing, and most of the ones I found were pretty heavy on the commentary. Mine is just straight up Bible passages. So, it's less like a podcast and more like an audio book I guess.

2. Continuing with Web 2.0 Student Use

I'm so proud of my kids at school for really stepping out and trying new things this year! I am able to have a special club of children in each grade level 3rd through 5th, and these guys are awesome. My fourth graders are writing and photographing for their very own news blog called What's Roaring, Tigers? In 2009, my goal is to help them publicize the blog so that we can reach a wider audience and maybe get some comments from people outside our school community.

3. Ironing Out the Snags for Video Editing

Our school was blessed this year to be able to purchase a new digital camcorder. Thus far, my fifth grade club has been producing weekly TV Shows using photographs, clip art, and audio files in Windows Movie Maker. You can see a couple of their shows here. With the new camcorder, we should be able to incorporate some live action as well, which will be exciting. However, Tech Services is having to work with me on being able to download the videos from the camcorder and edit them effectively. Restrictions on the computers are making things a little weird.

2009 should be a great year for new advances for me and for my media program at school. I'm excited to see how it will turn out!

A Creative Christmas

Today, I thought I'd do a quick highlight of my Christmas crafts for this year because I think it's neat. :) I learned to crochet this summer from mom-in-law Nancy and have been working hard on Christmas gifts almost since then.


My lovely niece got an afghan.

My sister Sonja received my first attempt at doily-making. It was actually kind of fun!

This is Nancy's hat, modeled by me. (I forgot to take pictures at the Pendleton Christmas... grr.)

Beautiful sister-in-law Ashley got a neck wrap, which is actually my favorite piece of all the ones I did, I think.

Tyler modeled his brother's ear warmer when I finished it. (We discovered it was way too big, but I was able to take it in some on Christmas and made it fit reasonably well.)

Mom asked for kitchen towels with handles like Grandma used to make. I was proud of myself for figuring out how to do these. Even with instructions, it was a little weird.

Tabetha also received a kitchen towel, which took a long time for its size but turned out pretty well.

So, if you were wondering why I haven't been blogging the past couple of months, it's because I was busy crocheting! And I'm so glad I did. Gift-giving was a lot of fun this year. In addition to crocheted items, some members of the family also received coffee home-roasted by Tyler.

We had a great time with both families and are at home now enjoying the memories of their company as well as their generous gifts. Merry Christmas!

Christmas and Twitter

Ok, my Twitter news is older and less exciting... I am now a Tweeter. I am libpendragon, so come find me, and follow me if you desire.

Now for the fun stuff -- Christmas! I'm not a huge decorator, but I do enjoy decorative touches, and having a Christmas tree is one of my chief joys of the season. Our Christmas tree growing up was always a hodge-podge of hand-made items, gift ornaments from friends and family, or ornaments commemorating special events or places, all topped off with colored lights that complemented the hodge-podge nicely. One year, I remember Mom mentioned trying to have a themed tree, and I was so disappointed at the thought of not getting out all of the ornaments, I felt like Christmas wouldn't even be Christmas. (We never did do a themed tree, and I was totally ok with that.)

So, when I moved out, I decorated my tree the same way. The hodge-podge was a little less busy, but I still had my varied and highly significant ornament collection, and I had my colored lights. Apparently, people have really strong feelings about colored lights, and I just never knew. I've never lived with anyone but my immediate family who didn't think they were completely tacky. So, the years I had roommates, no colored lights for me. Sad sad sad.

Last year, I decorated a tree for the first time as an old married lady. I busted out my colored lights with gusto. My husband hated them. I was sad, but they stayed up anyway, since we didn't have any others. Then, we went to a party, and I saw the best Christmas lights ever. They're from WalMart, and they switch back and forth from colored to white. I wasted no time this year, and as soon as the garden department underwent its tranformation to Consumer Christmas Central, I bought three strings. And now they're on my tree.

And that is the Christmas light saga. Now, I have my colored lights, and Tyler has his white lights, and I am happy, and while he may not be ecstatic, he does hate them less than the old ones.


And my favorite decoration aside from the tree is my nativity scene from Mom. I added the angel and the tea light holder myself.


Merry Christmas! (Brought to you by a completely indulgent blog post, but that's ok.)