Professional Development Day August 19,2015

Today was one of my favorite days!  It was system wide Professional Development Day for the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year.

It's one of my favorite days that, unfortunately, involved one of my least favorite activities - early rising.  Our county is large and this meeting was a million miles away on the other side of the world! (Ok it was a 45 minute drive around the beltway but it felt like a million miles away.)  My iron quit working.  The dog didn't want to come inside.  I spilled my Altoids all over the floor of the car as I was driving to my carpool meeting point.  Oh yeah.  This day was off to a good start.  But nothing was going to spoil this for me because I love this day.

I love this day for so many reasons.  We get to welcome the new library media specialists.  We get to see our friends.  We get to attend some great presentations by our co-workers.  I always travel through this day in awe and wonder at how cutting edge and advanced our county is and how perceptive and attune, to what kids want and need, our media specialists are.  I leave energized and ready to try a million new things in a million different ways.  The best part is that I know I am not the only one leaving feeling this way.

After greetings from Ryan Imbriale, we started with our very own leader, Fran Glick, giving our keynote this year.  It was a celebration of so many accomplishments of so many people in our office and the importance of our cohort partnership with Towson University.  I saw so many people raise their hands when Fran asked who had participated in a cohort.  I think that is such a big part of why we have such great LMS in our county-because they were classroom teachers and understand how to teach and motivate and manage students.

Then Fran mentioned the Un-Deweying project that I have been a part of. (Hey Fran - next time a heads up would have been appreciated and I would have spent more time on my hair this morning!) The exciting part was when she asked who had begun to un-dewey their library in some way as a result of hearing about our project.  I was floored!  I knew people were doing it.  I've had emails and tweets here and there.  But to see all those hands.  First, I was humbled to have played a part in that.  But then I was excited.  That excitement just kept building all day long.  People stopped me to show me photos of their libraries on their phones.  They stopped to tell me how many books they weeded.  They stopped to tell me how long it took them and how many hours (for most -unpaid) that they sacrificed this summer. They told me about teams they formed to work together in each other's libraries. And every person who stopped me was smiling and excited.  They were raving about how much their library spaces had transformed and how clean and fresh and beautiful they looked.  There were new signs, freshly painted walls, shelf space that didn't exist before and new decorative touches added.  Every person was just as excited as I was when I did it. Holey Moley!  They didn't even mention what the kids were going to think or how they were going to react because they were in love with their library spaces again.

I can't wait to hear about their student reactions.  I hope I get emails and tweets (@eeslibrary) and see photos. I wish I could visit their libraries and see the reactions. 

I had a chance to do our presentation once again with Kelly.  I really thought people would be tired of hearing about it and that no one would be left to attend.  And yet, there we were, with every chair filled.  And we even got a round of applause at the end!  It's exciting to see the middle and high school LMS who are ready to embrace this.

But enough about our little project.  I attended some seriously wonderful sessions today. 

In my first session, I got to explore the fully digital, fully uploaded curriculum in BCPSOne.  It is like having 6 curriculum binders available to me anywhere, at anytime, with an internet connection and a few clicks.  Planning in my hammock or on my front porch?  Yes please!

Then I headed off to learn about Scratch.  LOVE IT!  My kids are going to love it.  Such a great presentation.  Watch out Edgemere.  This is coming to a makerspace time near you very soon!

Then Jeffrey Flynn presented on 30 Cool Tech Tools.  Some were oldies I had forgotten about but there are definitely some wonderful new ones that I was introduced to and can't wait to explore.  He was a very engaging presenter.

Lunch was wonderful as I got a chance to catch up with my peeps. My cohort buddies are the best!

After lunch, Kelly and I did our presentation and then it was off to learn about Creating Interactive Assignments in BCPSOne presented by Justin Hennaut assisted by the very knowledgeable Jennifer Weaver.  As always, a wonderful and engaging time was had by all. 

Then a closing "job alike" session where we met with our geographical counterparts to think, pair and share about our day.

So, today was a good day.  I hope it was just as good for you.