Sunday, November 8, 2009

AASL 2009 - Notes and reflections

WOW.. that's all I can say about AASL - WOW...

Well, I do have some other things to say about the conference but if you are a school media specialist, start saving NOW for AASL 2011 in Minneapolis- really, I can't believe I have waited this long to attend a national conference. What I came away with was SO incredible and I will be talking about it and dissecting it more in the next few weeks as I have time to really go through conference notes and websites, but here were some highlights:

* stumbling into the Bloggers Cafe (and not realizing where we were) and meeting Joyce Valenza and Buffy Hamilton first thing on Thursday (both of whom are just MADE of awesome!) and listening to some great presentations and meeting some other FABULOUS media specialists and even a corporate librarian from GA. Here is the link to the wiki from the bloggers cafe.

* Listening to opening speaker Danah Boyd - wow - she had some great things to say, I wish I could have my staff and parents listen to her presentation!

* Attending the Smackdown (wiki here) - this was the BEST session of the whole conference - I am SO glad I went in early and got a seat!

* The exhibition hall was great too - I got some free books (including an ARC of the new John Green/ David Levithan book - SOO excited about this), some coupons from other vendors and I stumbled onto a great publisher - Sylvan Dell - their books are beautiful and they have a GREAT subscription e-book service! It will take me weeks to go through all the STUFF I came home with!

I promise more from the conference, but Book Fair starts tomorrow and I better get some sleep!

1 comment:

Andrea Christman said...

Kathy,

Wasn't the smackdown GREAT! I think they should make it a 1/2 day pre-conference event!

I loved reading your conference reflections. I added you to my blogroll at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlPNWfT9S2L6dG1IeW5vZUI3NFMweDZDMXB6Q01iMmc&hl=en

Hope your bookfair was a great success!

~Andrea