The Daring Librarian

At ISTE10 Denver I met a LOT of great people... one of them was ISTE Emerging Leader and EduTecher Adam Bellow. Funny story, I was hanging out in the Butterfly Lounge with Joquetta Johnson waiting to hook up with Joyce Valenza & the Geek Tribe when I got to talking to this guy there - Adam Bellow. Turns out I'd already been visiting his EduTecher site for a while (Ok, I'm really bad with names!) and was thrilled to meet him F2F! Now I call him a friend and part of my PLN here and on Twitter! This new easy to participate crowdsourcing charity project of his is amazing! You don't donate money, you just click. (similar to FreeRice.com) ....The EducTecher site isn't commercial...its' a FREE site that gives awesome tech tips and classroom & library resources. Learn more about how you can Change the World with just one click and get involved - by clicking the logo above. I also modded the badge to fit my blogger sidebar, grab it if you like for your own widge...

We were SO excited & flattered to host the Bob Edwards Sirius XM show a few weeks ago! They were doing a month long series called “ Shhhh… Libraries at Work !” (of course I HATE the Shhh! part!) and chose my school, Murray Hill Middle School to represent school libraries. (I know...like, WOW!) They found us through this blog and the interview focused on the future of school libraries, digital literacy, creating a positive digital footprint, research strategies, creating student assessment products, audio books, and how we always push the love of reading to our kids! In Part 1 (#6 on the iTunes list) you can listen to the Bob Edwards XM Show Podcast featuring my MHMS kids, MHTV crew, & our school library! It starts with Mrs. Singleton's 6th grade reading & research class visited for seminar book selection & talked about the kind of books they like, transitions into our MHTV crew creating our news show, and finishes with...Mrs. Cullison's class coming in for th...

Tomorrow morning I leave for Chicago. I've never been there and I'm SO excited. I'm honored, humbled, floored, & flattered (and frankly gobsmacked!) to have been asked to come to the School Library Journal’s 2010 Leadership Summit ! As the summit starts today I think I can safely announce why...and it makes me squirmy, happy, and strangely bashful to do so! GAH! 20 days ago I got this email out of the blue... "On behalf of Gale, part of Cengage Learning, and School Library Journal, I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected as one of five people to attend SLJ ’s Leadership Summit as part of the Cengage Learning / SLJ New Leaders program. The Cengage Learning/ SLJ New Leaders program is designed for school librarians who are new to the profession, and have already displayed leadership within their building, district and/or state; are advocates for students, libraries, and 21st century learning; and are actively engaged in sharing and colla...

Being asked to be the keynote at MASL was a huge compliment, and I'm honored to speak to my fellow Maryland teacher-librarians . My tough-love message is one that is a little hard to hear, one that doesn't accept the "yeah, buts" and excuses of county filters, the locked net monster, and draconian IT departments but hopefully one that will offer a lot of easy ways to make the digital shift that will solidify our position as invaluable and undeniably the EdTech and literacy leaders in our buildings, communities, and districts. And one that hopefully won't be as long winded as that last sentence. Resources for this keynote can be found on my Don't Hate the Hashtag Sqworl group. Resources for this session can be found on my Animation Studios & Sites wikipage and my Animation Sites & Education Resources HUGE group of Links Sqworl group.

Now, I know being on the Board of Directors of ISTE means I'm a wee bit biased...But they don't pay me and I've been an avid ISTE association fan & member since I attended my first NECC conference in 2007 - Atlanta - where Kathy Schrock first introduced to me the virtual world of Second Life! I'd been presenting every year at my state affiliate MICCA now MSET since 1996 but had never had the $ or the gumption to go to the "big show until 2007...when I finally decided that saving all year for the conference was the best investment in my professional growth...and yeah, I think it has worked out pretty well! [grin] ISTE is committed to being a vibrant vehicle and support for change agents & EdTech professionals around the globe. As leaders of the cutting edge they keep adding cool new stuff that makes being a member of the LARGEST EdTech association in the WORLD even better ! A brand NEW re-vamped website....with all kinds of great new features! Live! Chat ...

I found out about David Lanham - the amazing & talented artist from the Iconfactory who created the Ollie the Twitter bird (now available to purchase as a collectible toy!) on Mashable: FaceTime + $50 = Awesome Personalized Avatar & Wired: Geek Artist Making $50 Caricatures Over FaceTime this summer and just had to fearfully indulge in a custom cartoon avatar! I loved his style and he's got all kinds of geek hipster street cred! My geek greed demanded to be satiated! It took over a month to get an appointment - Here's the outfit I was wearing A Mini Tophat from Etsy.com, monocle on a black satin ribbon, babyphat black crotchet sweater, Steampunk Louise Black orig antique doll part necklace and lots of goth makeup! We connected via Skype and had a lovely convo for about 20 min or so while he sketched (and showed me a super cute puppy he and his wife are fostering) and this was the result! Very cool and SO worth it! Funny, I think it looks good...I look like a sw...

Re-posted from my school blog as an example of what I share with my community: We here at MHMS want our families and the community find us everywhere! We want to model savvy social networking practices... So with Dr. D's permission we started this Facebook page for our students, parents, & the community of Murray Hill Middle School! Please like us! But we also love & acknowledge all the alumni pages, group, & fan pages started by our AWESOME kids both past & present! So please "Like Us" on the Official MHMS Facebook page! The FB page features our school hours, links to our official school web page , digital photo galleries, wiki's, updates, and more! Though this Facebook resource page was created for parents, students over 13 are welcome to like it, too. Or under 13 - with parent permission. That's COPA folks! Because please kids, we want you to be web savvy digital citizens . Yeah, yeah...I know, I blog a LOT about digital awareness.......

I'm curious..... What do you think of the new version of the computer version of Twitter? customer surveys