Professional Travel Grants for Graduate Students
Posts tagged Ruta Sepetys
VAASL Conference
7 years
I attended the Virginia Association of School Librarians (VAASL) conference on Saturday November 4th. I attended the author breakfast as the first session within this day. The authors in attendance on this day included Meg Madina, Ruta Sepetys, Madelyn Rosenberg, Wendy Shang, and Lamar Giles. I was lucky enough to be seated next to Madelyn Rosenberg so we had a chance to talk about her book “This Is Just A Test”. The author book talk on Saturday morning was especially interesting to me since it covered the topic of diversity and diverse characters from different walks of life, parts of the world, and ethnic backgrounds in books.
In addition to the author book talk, I also had a chance to converse with different librarians from around Virginia and learn about how they conducted different mini lessons within their libraries. This was a great opportunity to not only meet and connect with other librarians but to hear about their different experiences in order to help me to shape my first year as a school librarian.
Additionally, I had a chance to attend a few workshops. One of the workshops was in regards to new technologies which included things from presentations tools, tools to use to create stations (such as QR codes), and technologies that help students to take ideas from a lesson and to place them in chronological order. I had such a great time; what an awesome conference!!!
VAASL 2017
7 years
The 2017 Annual VAASL conference was an amazing experience on every level. The Marriott Hotel in Chantilly, VA, was beautiful, and the staff of friendly and helpful. On Saturday I attended the Author Panel Breakfast and two sessions. At the breakfast, the authors spoke about how their books encompass the idea of multiculturalism. Meg Medina was the moderator for the event. The authors, Lamar Giles, Wendy Wan-Long Shang, Madelyn Rosenberg, and Ruta Sepetys, talked about their ideas and views on multiculturalism, their books, and their writing styles.
The first session I attended was “Reading Love, A Year of Collaboration”. The session was phenomenal. The presenters Tonya Dagstani and Nathalia Hardy presented information about the collaboration between the librarian and English teacher. They used the book by Penny Kittle, Book Love, to develop their collaboration. In their collaboration lesson, they used different sections of the book like reading ladders, speed dating, conferencing, thematic composition books, and many others to show the ways the library and the classroom can work together.
The second session “Keeping Up With Technology” was innovative and informative. I value myself as technology savvy and this session brought new ideas how to use technology in the classroom and library. I thought Rebekah Hall did a wonderful job showing the different ideas and providing how they could be used in different classes, not just English, but science, world language, etc. I provided the link to presentation since so many great ideas were given: https://www.emaze.com/@AORLOCRZQ/keeping-up-w-technology.
Throughout the day, I felt as if I were in my element. Surrounded by librarians, future librarians, teachers, and authors, I was able to learn so much about being a librarian.
VAASL Conference 2017
7 years
This was my first conference for school librarians. I attended two days worth of sessions and gained lots of great new ideas to use in the library. One session I attended was about different topics and trends for 2017 in the library. Some great ideas I am excited to learn more about are breakout boxes, teaching students about fake news, global goals, libraries as learning spaces, and using social media as an advocacy tool. Audrey Church was the session leader and she provided great example materials for us to get started. I was also able to attend two author sessions. The first was with Kwame Alexander (pictured with me). He talked about his love for poetry and how hard he worked to become a published author. His talk about visiting different schools and letting students see what poetry really is was very moving. The next author I was able to listen to was Ruta Sepetys. Her session was about why she writes historical fiction and why she focuses on specific topics. Her session was extremely powerful. Another great session I attended was on makerspaces for the elementary library. The speaker told us how he was able to create his space and what are good things to add to a makerspace. He also brought some of his breakout boxes for us to try to open. I definitely came home with some amazing ideas on how to make the library new and exciting for students. The sessions also gave me helpful ideas on new lessons. I cannot wait to attend next year!