LS 589 and did I mention I went to the UnConference?

So last week I went to the AASL conference which was a fantastic conference to attend. I mean over 2000 school librarians, supervisors and admin were at the conference! There was so many people to meet and chat and collaborate with! I met a supervisor who was from Harrisburg area and then one who was from Alaska! To talk about the same problems I am running into at my district is amazing to me that the world really is so small!

I also attended the UnConference which is a free event that is run by virtually the attendee's. There is a grid that people can put up what they would like to.. No keynotes! No panels! An opportunity to share even if you did not submit a proposal! The focus is on informal peer-to-peer learning, PLN building, and sharing! Basically if you want to go to the first session but decide you don't like what you are hearing, which rarely occurs, then you can use one of the rules!

 


I am looking to attend more UnConference or otherwise known as Edcamps as they are free and I can select topics of my choosing or create a topic to place on the grid. Here is the link for the information on the UnConference I attended. http://aaslunconference.wikispaces.com/ As you can see I led one of the grid spots in the first session.
The second session I chose to pick a topic on book blogs! How students are reviewing books and then blogging about them online! I have to get my students up to speed using the technology and google drive but this is going to be an exciting thing to implement soon!
Also at the UnConference there is a "Smackdown" which is a forum where you stand up and tell about the newest and best thing you have found most often being a technology. There were some things that I had heard of from before but a lot of new ideas were given. Here is the link to the smackdown list! https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SCnb5ikelkB-GuzgGAjz1WUwdxODlGn_b6AvtURFzI4/edit#slide=id.p

All in all I have a lot of things to review and go over and then prioritize and save as I can't possible  use everything that I learned this school year but want to save it as future ideas! Lots to do yet to make my library program the best it can be and evolve over time!