November Learning: Expanding the Boundaries of Learning

Dr. Joyce Valenza

About Dr. Valenza
Librarian, Springfield Township HS Library, Erdenheim, PA

Joyce Kasman Valenza loves her work as the librarian at Springfield Township High School (PA)! For ten years, she was the techlife@school columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joyce is the author of Power Tools, Power Research Tools and Power Tools Recharged for ALA Editions. (PowerTools Remixed is currently in progress.) She currently blogs for School Library Journal. Her NeverendingSearch Blog (now on the SLJ website) won an Edublogs Award for 2005, was nominated in 2008, and won again in 2009. She also blogs for Technology & Learning. Joyce was awarded the AASL/Highsmith research grant in 2005. She is a Milken Educator and an American Memory Fellow. She has produced and published a variety of videos and books about ICT skills. Her Virtual Library won the IASL School Library Web Page of the Year Award for 2001. She has won her state’s PSLA Outstanding Program (2005) and Outstanding Contributor (2009) Awards. Joyce is active in ALA, AASL, YALSA, and ISTE and contributes to Classroom Connect, VOYA, Technology and Learning, and School Library Journal. Joyce is a founder the TLNing, TLVirtual Cafe, ISTE’s SIG_MS, and the AASL Geek Squad. She speaks internationally about issues relating to libraries and thoughtful use of educational technology.

Pre-conference Session

A Few New Things: Learning, Sharing and Applying 2.0 Tools

How can we apply 2.0 tools to inspire learning and engage learners? Essential 21st century skills will be shared especially as they relate to improving information fluency, promoting effective communication and inspiring creativity.

As a group we will apply those tools to our own educational settings—our classrooms and our libraries. Come prepared to actively brainstorm the practical applications to improve student learning. Joyce will leave your brain happily tickled for the rest of the summer!

Among the things we will apply:

• Blogs
• Wikis
• Nings
• Image generators
• A variety of tools for digital storytelling

Main Session Workshops

School Libraries and Hybrid Practice

Our libraries should now have two front doors, and one of them should be virtual. Learning that happens during school hours in and outside of the library is supported by a 24/7 library Web presence. Whatever the platform, effective virtual library can be a vibrant knowledge management tool for the entire learning community. A good library Web site offers implicit (and explicit) instruction and projects an important image of the librarian as an information professional. Joyce explores models of practical, student-centered, effective hybrid practice gathered over the year on the School Library Web sites Wiki (http://schoollibrarywebsites.wikispaces.com/), Teacher Librarian Ning (http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com), the School Library Tapestry Ning (http://schoollibrarytapestry.ning.com), and the wikis of our regular Smackdown sessions!

The Wizard of Apps

If learners were iPhones and we were wizards, who could “load” them with the really critical apps–or gifts–to inspire digital citizenship, information fluency, creativity and collaboration, to take out into the world, how would we do it? Joyce and her students take us on a sing-along, musical exploration of those critical apps or gifts learners will need along the road.