With all the social networking tools and wireless mobility available, there are more and more ways to reach our customers and communities. Our speaker, an early user of The WELL and student of virtual communities (in fact, many credit him with creating the term), an architect of HotWired and Electric Minds, and now an educator and consultant, talks about trends in the social and mobile world that information professionals need to understand and pay attention to both now and into the future. A colorful (as his painted shoes will attest) speaker, Rheingold is sure to delight, confound, and spark your ideas!

Too many valuable and exciting tools, resources, and informational sites are filtered out of our schools. In particular, Web 2.0 resources fall victim, despite their great and growing value. It is time to speak up for reasonable and flexible filtering … filtering that protects the school community while also affording access to appropriate online sites, tools, and resources. In this session, Mary Ann Bell will discuss what CIPA, the Children’s Internet Protection Act, really mandates and how to work with gatekeepers to ease up on overly stringent filters. She will draw on a recent survey in which more than 500 librarians and teachers shared their experiences with filters, including ways to gain access to important resources.

To truly integrate technology, it must be available when and where it is needed. Mobile labs have become very popular in middle schools and high schools. However, laptops can be successfully used in K–5 classrooms as well. In this session, Renee Ramig will focus on the logistics of successfully using laptops with younger students. This will include deployment, updating, assigning, sharing, saving files, and classroom management with the ultimate goal of having technology available to the K–5 students in their classroom when it is needed.

Learn how to leverage available technology to optimize the use and integration of subscription online databases and other digital subscription content. In this session, Marty Rossi and Nick Glass will demonstrate ways to enable easy access to online resources, increase and nurture collaboration between teachers and librarians through integration of the library’s digital materials, and express to stakeholders the value of digital library collection development and management.

Teacher librarians who have completed the California School Library Association’s School Library Learning 2.0 are urged to become coach/mentors and lead colleagues in learning Web 2.0. In this session, Jackie Siminitus and Connie Williams show you how to create a “cover blog” for your school or district, and walk you through the steps necessary for offering Classroom Learning 2.0. What a practical way to advocate for teacher librarians!

Being in the right place at the right time is a skill. When discussions began on the development of new Washington State Social Studies  Classroom Based Assessments (CBAs), the Washington Library Media Association board created a task force to ensure its librarians were involved. The rubrics and stated common steps that surfaced indicated that students would need to research a wide array of resources, including primary documents. Learn from Nadean Meyer how librarians became the finders of resources, took part in statewide training, and are still the go-to “gurus” for the state curriculum and assessment developers. The session will demonstrate their resources and discuss what led to their successful collaboration at the state level.

Operating under stricter budgets than ever, today’s librarians and educators are capitalizing on Web 2.0 initiatives and tapping online tools and resources that enable them to more effectively conduct “business” with each other and with students. Learn from Robert Lackie about the many new online collaborative tools and technologies that have been developed to assist with teaching, research, and collaborative efforts, many for free and sometimes unlimited use.

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Exhibit Hall opening reception on Monday, October 20. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere.

In this session, Mary Auckland, consultant and former director of library and learning resources at the University of the Arts in London, will introduce you to Second Life—what it is, how it is being used by educators in general and by schools in particular, and why. How are school librarians involved in Second Life, and what are the issues for them and their schools in using it? Examples from the U.S. and the U.K. will be presented.

Believe it or not, some of your students are likely spending their free time on the internet reading and writing about books. In the world of text-based role-playing games, kids take on the personas of their favorite character—from Harry Potter to Naruto or characters from other fictional worlds—and create collaborative stories together. They do it all on their own, with no grades at stake, because it’s fun! In this session, Kit Ward-Crixell will introduce you to some online role-playing games made by others, but more importantly, she, along with session attendees, will create an online role-playing game from start to finish, so that attendees can see firsthand that it’s simple and fun. She’ll discuss copyright issues, privacy, and security, and how to adapt the games for different age groups, topics, and lengths of time. By the end of the session, you will be a game designer!

Kelly Czarnecki draws students into her ImaginOn library space through a wide range of appealing Web 2.0-based activities and technologies. In this session, Kelly presents examples of technology mashups such as videos, music, 3D objects, and more created by teens in the library and community. An overview of free software to help make your own mashups will be presented as well.

Stephen Abram will explore the technologies that are “musts” to use across the curriculum in a whole school manner. Some are just great tools, some are controversial, some challenge our capacity for technology and expertise. All enhance learning as well as school social cohesion. All prepare learners for the world that they will encounter rather than the world of the past. Listen, think, adopt, discuss.

How can the school library remain relevant in a time of constant change? Use these tips and tools to create a personal learning network to bring the best of the world back to your school site. Susan Geiger and Carolyn Foote will show you how to use social bookmarking, social networking, edublogging, and online conferencing to develop a rich professional network.

Web tools make our jobs easier! Join web tool fanatic Steven Cohen as he discusses the importance of keeping up with new web tools, tells how he does it, and shows off a whole raft of his favorites.

Join the Shanachie Tour and hear about the latest excursions and findings from libraries around the world - Jamaica, the Netherlands, North America, and more! Over coffee and cookies, be inspired by the Shanachie groupís enthusiasm and video skills and learn about some exciting practices around the world.