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Workshops

Symbaloo & Research 2.0 Workshop

Sep 24th, 2010
by pollyalida.
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SymbalooSymbalooEDU -  Symbaloo is a handy personalized start page service that helps you organize  links to favorite sites and displays headlines from RSS feeds. Similar start page services include iGoogle, NetVibes and Pageflakes. Though Symbaloo has been around for a couple of years, they’ve just launched a new education oriented version of their service.

Symbaloo takes a very graphical approach with every link appearing as a colorful square tile on a grid. Tabs across the top of the page let users set up multiple pages of content based on their own interests.  Each page can also include a center box with quick access to a variety of productivity tools including: search engines, encyclopedias, to do lists, calculator and more. Tabs can be shared with others, making it simple for a teacher/librarian to set up basic page of resources for students and then have students customize their own versions of the pages.

School Library – Research 2.0 – October 16, 2010

SymbalooEDU is one of the many tools we’ll take a look at during the School Library Research 2.0 workshop coming up on October 16th in Albany, NY.  The workshop will cover web tools that will help you and your students take a fresh approach to research projects, one that involves collaborating and sharing. During this workshop you’ll learn how to take advantage of tools that will help you and your students manage resources, organize data, collaborate with team members and connect with experts. And did I mention we’ll have a lot of fun too?  For more information check the  Capital Area BOCES SLS Calendar.

Upcoming Schedule

Apr 21st, 2009
by pollyalida.
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I just realized what a busy couple of weeks I have coming up. Not that the last few weeks haven’t been busy too….

Here’s where I’ll be teaching and speaking:

  • April 21 – Google Docs After School Workshop,  Questar III School Library System, Castleton, NY
  • April 23 – Flip Out Video Editing Workshop for MidHudson Library System, Poughkeepsie, NY
  • April 24 – Career Paths as Information Professionals Panel Discussion at Upstate NY SLA Conference, Albany, NY
  • April 27 – Screencasting Workshop, WNYRLC, Buffalo NY
  • April 28 – Online Marketing & Outreach, WNYRLC, Buffalo NY
  • May 2 – Using Web 2.0 Tools to Boost Your Program, NYLA SLMS Spring Conference, Saratoga, NY
  • May 2 – Google Tools for Collaboration & Productivity, NYLA SLMS Spring Conference, Saratoga, NY
  • May 5 – Delicious After School Workshop, Questar III School Library System, Castleton, NY
  • May 8 – Online Outreach and Marketing: Taking Advantage of Web Services to Promote Your Library, Westchester Library Association Annual Conference,  Tarrytown, NY
  • May 12 – Google Docs, Capital Region BOCES School Library System Liaison Meeting, Albany, NY

Really looking forward to meeting lots of friends – new and old – at these meetings and workshops!

Workshops in Western New York

Feb 7th, 2009
by pollyalida.
2 comments

WNYRLC has posted their schedule of workshops coming up in March and April. I’m looking forward to being in Buffalo doing two workshops – Screencasting on April 27 and Marketing & Outreach with 2.0 Tools on April 28. Thanks to Laura Osterhout for the opportunity to do these workshops!

(Watch for these workshops coming up in Connecticut too.)

School Library Workshop

Sep 30th, 2008
by pollyalida.
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This past weekend, I had the great pleasure of teaching a workshop for school librarians in the Dutchess & Ulster BOCES School Library Systems. 14 librarians gave up the weekend to be locked away in a training room! We had some great discussions about technology and schools. And everyone went away having learned about some new tools and with plans in place to share what they learned with students and other teachers.

Everyone set up a delicious account and had instant network of colleagues. Throughout the weekend they all added links to their accounts. And they tagged them all with a unique tag for the group so they could create an RSS feed for that later in the day.

The group now has a wiki where eveyone introduced themselves and shared their plans and ideas that came out of the weekend. And they also set up a personal homepages using iGoogle and learned how to add RSS feeds from many different sources.

Amazingly everyone stayed awake for an after dinner session where we did some karaoke with Sims On Stage to get our blood flowing again. And everyone then joined Twitter!  I was just going to demo some social networking tools and suddenly everyone was twittering! Again, they had a built in instant network.

The session ended on Sunday with time for everyone to explore the resources in the class wiki, time to work on their own projects and to share ideas with each other.

I don’t know about everyone who participated, but I came away excited (AND exhausted!) Thanks so much to Danielle Boyea (Ulster BOCES SLS) and Rebecca Gerald (Dutchess BOCES SLS) for organizing the weekend. And to everyone who attended. It was an inspiring and fun weekend.

Growing Into Inquiry workshops for School Library Media Specialists

Sep 25th, 2008
by pollyalida.
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I sent out a plea for help today to my school library buddies, asking for some curriculum links for an upcoming workshop. Mary Ratzer, a former School Library Media Specialist, now a consultant (Learning Curve Associates) sent me a wonderful list of Inquiry Lesson Plan Sites that she uses in her workshops.

“We use these sites in a workshop called Growing Into Inquiry where we transform flat, task oriented, fact detecting research tasks into inquiry process gold. It is our strategy to thereby implement the Information Inquiry Curriculum that 50 SLMS wrote with Linda Fox and me in 2006.”

I’ve had the pleasure of attending presentations given by Mary and am in awe of her knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to engage an audience. I’ve also co-presented some workshops with her and learned so many new things in the process.

Don’t pass up a chance to attend a presentation or workshop by her!