Wednesday, September 24, 2008

ALSC Institute

I just got back from the Association for Library Service to Children's National Institute. This is a conference held every two years (it's in Atlanta in 2010): "a two and a half day intensive learning opportunity with a youth services focus." I came away with a lot of great content to add to the website and tons of programming ideas--which I will type up for Cindy Mares in the near future. I attended the technology track and the lifelong reading track (they also had a programming track and we got to hear 4 authors speak: Sharon Creech, William Joyce, Laura Seeger, and Christopher Paul Curtis). It was a very well organized conference and would be a great one for anybody in youth services looking for a nice professional development opportunity. I'll attach my notes once I've finished them, but feel free to contact me if you want more info about the Institute.

1 comment:

Jill Corrente said...

Here are a few of the notes I've managed to type up:

Kids are “platform agnostic.” They’ll read the book, listen to the cd, watch the movie, play the games, and go on to create their own content.
Examples of fan fiction:
mugglecast.net (podcasts on “everything HP”)

Kids can spend 4x as much time reading about/researching games as playing—literacy!

“Guided access”: have cool links that you have evaluated available for kids so they have less of an opportunity to get into something inappropriate on their own.
Examples:
Tycoon (like Lemonade Stand)
Setgame


Technology with a program:
Have kids create an itunes playlist for a character from a book you are discussing.
Have kids create book displays or booklists based on what they like about a video game.
Cell phone clinics—teens can show adults/seniors how to use.
Ben 10 game creator: Show kids elements of good games and have them play each others’ games.
Start with a program before you: launch a website feature (book reviews, podcasting, commenting) or circulate technology (video games)
Dance off your fines
Podcast by phone (www.gcast.com)
Avatar creation—have a contest and tie in with internet safety (www.faceyourmanga.com)
Online karaoke/mashup—have a contest and tie in with ethics (thesimsonstage.ea.com/index.html)
Have kids create a facebook profile for a character (ie Shakespeare)

Overdrive is working on downloadable games.
MA had entire state use evanced for SR. They used a feed from the SR module to their own SR page for reviews posted there.
Use Delicious to create pathfinders and send the URL to the school with the assignment.
Google Image Labeler is a fun way to introduce tagging to patrons, staff
Wordle.net will let you create your own tag cloud

-see informationgoddess.info blog section for handouts