Step 13: Confer with others - NHSLMA2015

Today's post is all about conferences!  I love going to conferences!  I am always amazed and energized by the awesome things that my fellow educators are doing.  In April I had the good fortune to attend the New Hampshire School Library Media Association (NHSLMA) conference in Manchester NH. http://nhslma.org/event-1762443  The keynote speeches were wonderful and each workshop that I attended gave me excellent ideas that I was able to apply in my classroom immediately.  I also had the privilege of presenting at this conference on Makerspaces!

 Here is my presentation if you want to take a gander.  The experience was incredible as the session was filled to the gills and many people came up afterwards and shared how much they enjoyed the session!  But what really had me chuffed was when Matthew Winner, one of the keynote speakers, and one of my library idols I might add, mentioned my presentation in his keynote speech!!  I'm pretty sure I was blushing from head to toe!  Later on at the conference I met not only Matthew, but also Jennifer LaGarde and John Schu, two more of my library idols!  I was even more excited that they let me take a selfie with them!

When you have the opportunity to share with amazing people like this, it makes your whole day!

Step 12: Back from a summer of fun!

Hey again folks!
I spent my summer taking several classes at Marlboro College Grad Center, attending various educational workshops, and directing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for Hillcat Theater in Hillsboro NH.  it was a BUSY summer!  Add onto that pickling and preserving the veg from my garden and it is a wonder that I had any time to myself!  But I didn't come here to rant, I came here to share some of the wisdom that I have gathered this summer.

One of the best classes that I had this summer was about Games and Simulations in the educational setting.  I learned about Second Life, and Minecraft.  I played around in these worlds and realized that I have very little skill as an avatar in the virtual world!  I did have a blast and certainly learned a great deal about perseverance and hard work.  It really does help give perspective when we are asking our students to try things that they are uncomfortable with!  Now, when my students see that I have Minecraft on my computer, they ask "Why do you have Minecraft?"  I can say with confidence, albeit very little, that I play Minecraft and am looking at ways to incorporate the use of Minecraft in the classroom.  Their eyes light up and then we start having conversations about what they could learn or demonstrate in Minecraft.  I find that if I listen to them, they inspire all kinds of ideas.

Meeting with other Marlboro students "in world".

Step 11: Catch up!

We all know that the end of the school year can be crazy busy...which is partially why I haven't posted in a few months!  Sorry to all my faithful readers!  I will probably post a few times this month as I get back into the swing of things.  One of the projects that I was working on for grad school last semester was a post about why blogging is an important tool for communication and reflective thought.  I became discouraged, having to rewrite the draft several times, because I have always thought of myself as a good writer...clearly the instructor did not feel the same way! Since I held off on posting that, it held me back from posting at all.  This is one of the main reasons I'm writing today and catching up, to prove that I won't let someone else's opinion silence me.  I've been to a few conferences in the past few months, in fact I am at one right now.  These experiences have shown me that the one thing I need to do more of is TALK!  Those of you who know me might be shaking your head and laughing. "Does she really need to talk more?" might be a question you are asking yourself!  I know my dad would be singing the "Talk too much" song!  But it is important to talk about and share what we do.  I've been so inspired by librarians like Shannon Miller (@shannonmiller), John Schu (@MrSchuReads), Matthew Winner (@MatthewWinner), Jennifer LaGarde (@jenniferlagarde) and Diana Rendina (@DianaLRendina). I've been sitting here thinking about how awesome they are, how approachable they are, and how much I have learned from them.  Then I realized, the biggest difference between them and me...they talk about what they do!  They share their experiences via Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Instagram, Vine and numerous other social media sites.  I can't do it all, but I can promise myself to do more.  So today I am promising to do more; to schedule into my work week, time to send tweets and post to Facebook about things that are happening in my library.  I promise to share what is happening in my profession on Blogger and Google+.  I promise to make a point of sharing my resources with fellow librarians and my teacher colleagues so that everyone can hear my voice. Thank you to those of you who listen!