Professional Development

The keynote speaker this afternoon on the technology at the Georgia Aquarium was fascinating. Can’t wait to go there to see it all first hand. I was hoping to get there this trip, but it will have to wait until November when I’m brining Erin down to meet up with a college friend and her daughter.

The second session of the afternoon was an interesting one from Georgia Gwinnett College, a brand new campus in the Univ. of GA system. They did a pilot with with two classes and gave them cell phones for data collection and to use as an audience response system. They did some cool things and learned a lot. They are now REQUIRING faculty to have cell phones (numbers published in the staff directory). They can use their own phones, or use a state provided one which is paid for, but they cannot use it for personal calls. They will be requiring cell phones with text messaging capabilities for all students starting next year. They plan to start providing grades and other information to students on them.

The reception was very nice tonight (who can fault a reception where you get a free glass of wine AND chocolate fondue??) and tomorrow will be filled with more sessions - another on podcasting, one on social software and a couple on Information Literacy.

For those who don’t know what Educause is, it is an organization dedicated to Technology in academic institutions. You always feel you are at a conference run by professionals, here, because they are really good at it. Their big annual conference in the Fall each year is akin to ALA in terms of size and number of vendors (but more men!) The conference I am at this week is their South East Regional and is much more concentrated and manageable than the big one.

This morning I went to a Pre-conference on Podcasting. I know several of our faculty are using Podcasting and I hoped this session would help me get ideas about how we can use it in LIB100 classes and in the library as a whole. I know the Tech Team has done some looking into this so perhaps we can all get together and brainstorm when I get back. I was hoping for more technological information in the session - software, etc. but it was more about the concept of podcasting. They gave us some great examples of schools that are using it like NC State’s Wolfcast and there are lots of things we could do in terms of general library content - using specific databases, tours, etc. that could easily be done in the podcast format.

Podcasting offers a lot of possibilities for increasing active learning time in classes by providing the lecture material for review before and after class. It also provides a way to be sure students who miss class because of illness or campus activities have access to the same content as those who come to class. I’d be interested in testing out some options for LIB100 this Fall. My mind is already scheming…..

As usual, you learn more at many conferences from the other attendees than you do from the presentations, but this was a worthwhile session. Now off to lunch and back for the General Session on Technology at the GA Aquarium. Should be interesting. More this evening!

As I said, there are thousands of librarians here, spread out all over the city in multiple hotels. Meetings are stretched out all over also, so it’s not surprising that I haven’t laid eyes on Lauren, Mary or Sarah (I did run into Lynn on the street yesterday as we hurried to go to different meetings).

Imagine my surprise today when I met up with 3 old colleagues and friends from ZSR! First, I ran into Debbie Nolan in one of the meeting hotels. We took time out to sit and have a nice talk. She’s doing great at Towson and looked like she’s thriving in her new role. As we were parting ways, who came up but Emily Stambaugh, still at UC Riverside. She mentioned she is rooming with Sarah! Finally, as I was heading up the street to the exhibit hall after lunch, I heard someone call out “Susan” and who was there but Sherri Durren. She is still in Georgia. We chatted for several minutes. It turns out today is her birthday and I confessed that I am now a grandmother.

It was great to catch up with folks I haven’t seen or heard from in eons and renew acquaintances!