As information permeates all aspects of our lives, Rainie shares research and predictions about the impact of internet and mobile connectivity. He understands the library and information community and provides his top tips and strategies for taking advantage of the research to plan and implement key services and programs for libraries and information services.

Combined keynote with Computers in Libraries 2010.

Learn from well-known media specialist, blogger, and opinion leader Buffy Hamilton how to use social media to help students create, collaborate, and connect while seamlessly integrating the AASL Standards for 21st Century Learners. You’ll discover concrete and strategic approaches for using and teaching social media tools with students to cultivate information literate learners, including blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, feed aggregators, and Google tools.

Information fluency has long been central to academic, professional, and lifelong success. However, with the information explosion that has occurred in the past 2 decades, information fluency has taken on a new level of importance. In this session, P21 strategic council member David Schroeter will explore and discuss the nature of information fluency as a key skill that students need to learn if they are to achieve their greatest potential for success in the world that awaits them.

In this session, you’ll become familiar with the Capstone Technology Teacher Certification program, its elements, and its adherence to the 2008 National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). Capstone program manager Nadyne Hick will guide you through explorations of exemplary Capstone Portfolio entries and artifacts, demonstrating how the NETS-T transfer into professional practice for teachers from across the country. You’ll have an opportunity to apply what you’re learning by classifying examples of teaching practice by Standards and Performance Indicators. And you’ll leave not only with an understanding of the NETS but a sense that you’re starting on the path to earning NETS-T certification.

Ideally, “collaboration” means librarians, teachers, and media specialists all working together cohesively, sharing our talents and learning from each other. Realistically, it includes the challenge of offering help without being pushy, nosy, or overbearing. We are all overbooked and overburdened. Can we find time to work together? Do the solutions to these questions involve online collaboration? Do we need to be together to work together? Archivist and head librarian Rebecca Brooks, e-communications manager Kelly Brown, and senior marketing manager Marisa Peacock offer best practices, tools, and tricks for integrating and cultivating knowledge-sharing among teachers, librarians, and media specialists.

This session, presented by Google-certified teacher-librarian Karen Kliegman, will introduce innovative ways that free Google applications can be used in the school library. The fast-paced presentation includes advanced search techniques and an introduction to collaborative, web-based applications. Participants will hear about inspirational instructional strategies; come away with a plethora of Google Apps tips; and witness examples of Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Forms, and more that have been implemented in school library media centers.

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants to a special welcome reception in the exhibit hall on Monday, April 12. 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.

Join the 10th Archivist of the United States for a conversation about libraries and the information ecology. Recently appointed by President Obama, our speaker has a depth of experience with academic libraries both at Duke University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he was most recently the Director of The New York Public Libraries. Hear his thoughts about information fluency, digitization and preservation, as well as the challenges and opportunities for libraries, archives and other information enterprises.


Combined keynote with Computers in Libraries 2010.

Social networking sites and Web 2.0 are changing the online world, and it’s time for schools to fully use these epublishing tools. Teachers want to use electronic resources and seek to learn how to assess and best use them. Presenter Rita Oates, involved with creating electronic texts and online learning materials for more than 20 years, will show how basic principles of teaching, learning, and instructional design are applied to the newest media formats. You’ll see how to judge the educational effectiveness of electronic resources and some best-case examples of digital learning materials from educational, government, association, and for-profit sources. Features that help engage students and promote more robust student learning will be emphasized. The focus is on the opportunity for project-based learning, issues of classroom use, and optimal interactive learning materials.

Put together a project inviting students to bring in and use their own technology, whether it be laptops, iPods, cell phones, or other items. Combine it with a cart of iPod touches, a wireless network, GoogleApps, blogs with WordPress, PollEverywhere with cell phones, and ePals. What do you get??!? A myriad of opportunities for learning 21st-century skills in a variety of creative formats. Instructional media and technology coordinator Dawn Nelson tells how her school did it and describes the challenge of supporting media specialists and technology integration teachers as they develop relevant, engaging projects based on what students have brought to use in the classroom. Topics covered include project planning, equipment organization, lesson development, and initial project reviews.

Google is the world’s most popular search engine and “to Google” has become a research habit for students. But few understand how Google and other search engines really operate. The goal of the session is to teach educators how Google works so we can influence students to change their “Google habit pattern” and incorporate other proprietary databases into their research. Discover how and why Wikipedia results rank high, why Google favors .edu and .gov sites for informational searches, why the racist website martinlutherking.org is returned in the top five results by Google, Bing, Exalead, and Yahoo! in a search for “martin luther king” and why Google does not consider usage data when determining results rankings. With a better knowledge of how Google works, educators can integrate its use into an overall information literacy program that stresses the use of the library’s proprietary databases and searching the web with Google.

Join staff from the Library of Congress for an overview of new and improved features including updated pages for teachers with new features, tools, and content; enhanced online and customizable professional development offerings to help educators bring primary sources into the classroom and help students think critically, construct knowledge, and develop the information fluency necessary for success in the 21st century; the World Digital Library, presenting rare and unique documents—books, journals, manuscripts, maps, prints and photographs, films, and sound recordings—that tell the story of the world’s cultures; an improved browsing index to find digitized primary sources; the new Read.gov, featuring digitized rare books and a serial novel for kids: The Exquisite Corpse Adventure. Learn ways to incorporate these free resources into the curriculum to engage students and to support thinking and learning.

Web search guru and ResourceShelf publisher Gary Price joins one of his favorite groups, K–12 librarians (you!), to share the latest on what’s happening in the wide world of online resources that can benefit you, your colleagues, and your students. And he’ll also use part of his time to host a wrap-up session on  what you all have heard, learned, brought to, and are taking away from our Internet@Schools conference wherever the discussion might lead! Should be lively!