This was my first, but definitely not my last, MSLA Conference! I was nervous and excited to go and so glad I did. These are the highlights of each presentation.
Kwame Mbalia
The keynote speaker was very entertaining and had such a touching story about his relationship with his school librarian. She’d slyly put a book down on the table that he sat at during lunch each day knowing that he’d read it and like it. This librarian would do this to every sort of misfit student in the school. It gave me one more idea for how I can serve students when I work in a school someday.
The Great Genrefication Project presented by Jennifer Jones
This was probably my favorite presentation. Jones explained her process for genre-fying her entire high school library collection. Some things that stuck out to me are that she picked up one book at a time to determine if it should be weeded or assigned a genre. For books that could be in more than one category, she chose the location her students would most likely find it. She also collaborated with a math teacher who assigned his students to calculate how many books should be distributed to each shelf. So far, Jones’ circulations have increased by 35%.
I know there are a lot of varying opinions about genre-fying a collection. Every librarian I’ve done an observation with is against it. However, I think if it’s going to get the books circulating, why not? Non-fiction is still in Dewey, so there is still a lot of opportunity to teach students how to use the OPAC.
Storytime on Steroids: Turn read alouds into student engagement showcases presented my Emily Litman
I found this to be a really great insight into how one librarian is conducting her story times. She based her presentation around Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop’s Mirrors, Windows, and Doors philosophy. I’d already known about Dr. Bishop’s work, so it was great to understand how someone is doing it in their library. Litman actually asks the students, Is this a mirror story for you? She then gives her students a chance to draw something about the story. It is an open-ended assignment to relate to the book in whatever way they’d like. For the rest of the class, she lets them do a free time where they can read, color, play with Legos, etc. There is also a puppet she uses and introduced us to. She works at a Montessori School and someone in the audience asked about doing this in a public school. From that discussion, I learned that students’ days are so structured that when given an opportunity to do what they want, they don’t know what to do with themselves.
Removing Roadblocks to Reading by Barbara Johnson
This one was very similar to our class! Barbara Johnson is a former librarian, now Technology Director for her district. She presented quite a few assistive technology resources, many of which I have not come across during my own exploration. One thing that stood out to me is that many of the resources she found were a result of one student needing an accommodation. It made me think that we don’t know what services our libraries are lacking until a student has a need that is not being met. It also made me realize just how important staying up to date with all the applications out there.
BookShare Reader: a program that provides full-text to books across all genres. Books can be downloaded as a Word document. In Word, you can translate the text to a different language for a student.
Dyslexie: a Chrome add-on that changes the font on a computer to a dyslexic-friendly font. This includes webpages, Google results page, etc.
BeeLine Reader: Highlights one line at a time to make reading easier.
Dig into Digital Citizenship for Elementary and Middle School Learners presented by Amy Salinger and Paul Hundley
This presentation went nicely with LBS 750, which I’m also taking this semester. The two presenters gave a lot of different resources they have used to teach media literacy to their students. A few notable things were that the students are already learning to just be good citizens in real life in the library. The other was how media literacy also coincides with the Social Emotional Learning DESE framework. The presenters talked a lot about teaching the students empathy. They also said the classroom/library is a neutral setting to teach students media literacy because at home parents are fighting with their children to put their phones down.
I completely forgot to take any pictures, so here’s a meme:
Created using imgflip.com
No comments:
Post a Comment