Rainie discusses his organization’s latest findings and why they suggest that libraries can play a role in people’s social networks in the future. He’s not going to describe how to set up a Facebook profile. Rather, he’s going to talk about the reasons that people rely more and more on their social networks as they share ideas, learn, solve problems, and seek social support. He’ll describe why the internet and cell phones have changed the way people construct and operate social networks and why libraries can act as the “node” in people’s networks.

Combined keynote with Computers in Libraries 2009.

ISTE’s recently released National Educational Technology Standards for teachers provide rich, faceted guidelines for infusing technology into the curriculum. The challenge lies in knowing how to bring them to life in your busy classroom. How do you foster a learning environment that allows your students to embrace technology meaningfully and substantively? How do you ease into the dual roles of learner and leader in the face of endlessly expanding technology? And how can you possibly fit one more thing into your already overcrowded daily schedule? It can be done, and National Board Certified media specialist Johanna Riddle will show you how! You’ll see practical activities that engage your students in research, writing, multiple literacies, creative problem solving, and higher thinking skills. Along with those techniques are proven classroom strategies for planning, management, and assessment.

Join CCNY’s Sheila Gersh and learn how you can involve your students in the study of other countries and cultures through the use of the internet and email. CultureQuests are studentcentered, inquiry-based investigations into aspects of other cultures’ history, geography, art, music, everyday life, customs, foods, clothing, and religion. In addition, they provide a model of how technology may be integrated into most areas of classroom learning, enhancing literacy standards and technology skills. During this session, Gersh will help you gain a greater understanding of the use of the internet to conduct your investigation about the study of other cultures and become familiar with the various technology skills needed to complete a CultureQuest project.

21st-century learning standards (AASL’s & ISTE’s, to name a few) highlight the importance of collaborative learning and thinking. What tools can foster and encourage collaborative student engagement while also addressing budgetary and infrastructure limitations? In this session, library media specialist Ernie Cox will offer you a look at tools that address this question, including Google Education Edition, Noodle Bib, wikis, and more.

How can the school media specialist promote the love of books in a wired world? In this interactive session, media specialist Cecelia Carmenates and technology specialist Patrick Ledesma will share strategies for teaching students to create blogs, wikis, and podcasts in the library media program to develop an interest in books as well as to learn valuable 21st-century skills and tools. They’ll teach you their strategies for collaboration, technology management and curriculum integration and show you authentic examples of student work.

Movie trailers sell movies. Book advertising sells books. In this presentation, Kutztown University library science and instructional technology department chair Eloise Long and elementary school librarian Eileen Kern demonstrate how you can combine the two and transform the traditional oral book talk into a technology-based product. The result is a book promotion that’s available to individuals and groups via the web—24/7. The speakers will focus on using this strategy to allow the visual and auditory learner to share good literature. They’ll feature student examples using Mac and Windows products, including iMovie, PhotoStory, Windows MovieMaker, Audacity, and GarageBand.

Feeling shell-shocked with the weekly rollout of Web 2.0 tools? In this session, elementary media specialist Karen Kliegman will separate the wheat from the chaff, demonstrating which tools deepen learning, capture students’ voices, and lead to improvement in achievement. Experience projects that create learning environments filled with student authors, creators, problem-solvers, and movie-makers. Harness the power of Web 2.0 tools and transform your school library media center into a dynamic, interactive environment!

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants to a special welcome reception in the exhibit hall on Monday, March 30. This is a great time to renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere.

As the founder, curator, and voice of “LIVE from the NYPL,” an innovative series of public talks, debates, performances, it is Holdengraber’s responsibility to “think up programs that will stimulate intellectual fervor, inspire discussion and dissent, and create forums to bring books and people together.” He defines what he does in two words: “cognitive theater!” He has interviewed, moderated or, as he prefers to say, instigated—conversations with writers, artists, world leaders, humorists, cooks, psychoanalysts, and filmmakers from around the globe. In a passionate and engaging interview Erik Boekesteijn will goad Paul Holdengraber and have him reveal why he believes that public conversations are one fundamental way to make libraries irresistible to ensure their everlasting importance for the future. 

Combined keynote with Computers in Libraries 2009.

The Open Educational Resources movement is gaining steam. Organizations such as speaker Peter Levy’s Curriki and others continue to build both a critical mass of members and highquality electronic educational resources, prompting districts to ask: “Why spend $30 million on new textbooks that will be obsolete in 6 years when we can spend far less engaging additional union teachers to create a high-quality open source curriculum correlated to state standards that can be realigned each year to address the results of NCLB tests?” In his session, Levy will detail a vision for the future of open educational resources and describe a number of ways that school leaders can best take advantage of this new opportunity.

School librarians frequently face the common limitations of small budgets, lack of personnel, tiny spaces, and antiquated technological capabilities—with little hope of changing any of these situations alone! A simple and often overlooked solution is to turn to the public library in your very own community, where a collaborative partnership can benefit both parties. Drawing on her book Library Partnerships: Making Connections between Public and School Libraries (publication date: spring 2009, Information Today, Inc.), Tasha Squires will focus on how school librarians can work together with their public library counterparts to utilize each other’s resources by creating blogs, MySpace pages, YouTube contributions, and podcasts to support their communities. Discussing ways to share valuable assets such as cameras, video recording devices, and database collections will also be detailed in the presentation.

Got a laptop, some time, and a desire for some hands-on, interactive action? Join internet librarian and educator Dave Fontaine from 12:30 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. as he guides participants through the steps of collaboratively editing a shared document. You’ll work with wikis, embedding multimedia, gadgets, and widgets. It’ll be a great chance to actually practice using some of the tools you’re hearing about during the regular sessions, as well as to reinvigorate the group while also adding some fun to the middle of the day. Participants will learn how to create some collaborative documents that they will be able to bring back with them and immediately use in their schools.

You’ve all seen the media’s perception of online dangers. It can present a pretty lurid and paralyzing picture in a world where embracing “online” is essential for your students. Now, with internet safety go-to guy and WiredSafety.org educational technology director Art Wolinsky as your guide, take a look at the research, the real picture, and what some of the new technologies can do to help you develop your students into responsible, safe, information-literate netizens.

In this session, former chair of the AASL Intellectual Freedom Committee Carrie Gardner explores how the language used in school and district acceptable use policies (AUP) impacts student access to the internet as well as educator behaviors and lessons. AUPs really make a difference, so learn to use them to your advantage. Gardner addresses topics such as opt into access and opt out of access, parental permission forms, and discipline codes.

As you work to improve your skills as librarians in this changing world, it is crucial that you reach out to your faculty as a resource beyond the information you provide. In her session, Beaver Country Day School library and information services director Kelley Connolly discusses how she created a buzz around Web 2.0 technologies at her school by creating a social networking site (iTeach; http://iteach.ning.com) and piloting an online wiki course … while continuing to run the library!

Gartner Research Group predicts that by 2011, 80% of internet users will be in virtual worlds. The use of virtual worlds for entertainment and education is rapidly increasing, especially for teens and tweens. In this session, Lori Bell and Sonja Plummer-Morgan talk about what libraries are doing in virtual worlds and the future of libraries in these worlds.

Hear from a number of Library Journal “Movers & Shakers” and CIL experts on their views  of dead and innovative technologies affecting our libraries now and as we create the future.