Posts tagged Shannon Miller

Librarians on the Edge in Williamsburg

VASSLI learned so much at the VAASL Conference in Williamsburg.  I picked up a wealth of ideas, resources, and contacts to take back to my school.  Some of the highlights included keynote speakers Shannon Miller and Margaret Willison, but my absolute favorite was YA author Maggie Stiefvater.  As a first-year librarian, this conference was very valuable to me and I hope to return every year!

 

VAASL conference 2015

image1This past weekend I had the pleasure to attend a wonderful conference.  I attended the VAASL conference in Williamsburg, VA.  This was my first time attending the conference and I  was amazed at everything the conference had to offer.  There were so many amazing session titles and descriptions that it was difficult to choose just one!  Each session I attended, I learned something new, innovated and exciting.  This year the keynote speakers, Margaret Willison and Shannon Miller were just amazing.  Hearing them speak gave me encouragement to be able to do great things in the library.  I am not yet a librarian, but I am definitely excited about becoming a librarian in the near future.

One of the take aways from a session I attended, was using the library in math class. I am currently teaching math and it can be difficult to incorporate the library and it can get boring with the every day worksheet.  The session showed me how to incorporate fractions of words to create new words that would form book titles.  I loved this and immediately thought I could do this right now in my class.  So yesterday, Monday 11/23/15, my students were fully engaged in this activity.  I invited my principal into my class to see my new knowledge in action!

I cannot wait to attend VAASL next year!

 

VAASL 2015

VASSL This was my first time attending the VAASL conference. I had an absolute blast! The presenters were amazing and inspiring to hear and see. I was ready to go back to school energized and ready to implement some new ideas. I attended a session about generifying my library collection. I already do this in my own classroom library and felt very confident about doing this in the library. I loved listening to all the tech tools and websites that Shannon Miller presented. I want to pick a few this nine weeks and have my students use some of the project ideas! Students use Blended Learning and some of the ideas that Shannon had will be great for final products. I will definitely be back next year! Such a great group of colleagues and so many wonderful ideas!

VaASL 2015

This year’s VaASL conference was very well-organized and informative.  Highlights of the conference were keynote addresses from Margaret Willison, pop culture guru, and Shannon Miller, an Iowa librarian who isn’t afraid to try anything and has a passion for the students and teachers with whom she works, and the Friday night author banquet with Maggie Steifvater, author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, who kept us in stitches with her 8-chapter life story.  They were each very entertaining and approachable. I learned something from each session I attended, including amazing websites from Heather Moorefield-Lang, Karla Collins, and Audrey Church, that I will share with students and teachers at my school. Other topics that will help me improve our library were about diverse book selections, how to host a poetry slam, handling 1:1 implementation, teaching summarization, and making over your website.  I even learned a lot from visiting various vendors (Alexandria, Follett, Mackin, Worldbook, Gale Cengage, and Library of Virginia) in the exhibitor hall. I will definitely attend next year’s conference in Norfolk!

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VAASL 2015

imageI had the opportunity to attend the VAASL 2015 conference in Williamsburg, VA this past weekend. It was AMAZING!  I learned a lot of new information and saw some wonderful librarians and authors.  I had the opportunity to attend several breakout sessions including:  Top 10 Trends from AASL, Top Apps for Librarians, Makerspaces, Middle School Programming, and Myths and Magic to name a few.  I had the opportunity to connect with Shannon Miller over Twitter and meet Maggie Stiefvater!  There were many informative vendors who gave out fabulous swag like Google Cardboards.  My favorite was the Farmer who had a live pig with whom I had the chance to get up close and personal with.  (Albeit he was a little stinky!)  I would like to thank the Graduate Department of Longwood University for the opportunity to make this a bit more financially feasible with the graduate travel grant.  I know that VAASL will become a permanent fixture in my professional development plan.  I can’t wait for next year!

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