Any excuse to wear a red velvet coat

Hello folks …another great day in library-land, in fact especially good today. There was the great discovery! Yesss. All that, and the Olympic Games on the IWB all day! 

Of course, in true MrsPotts fashion I was supposed to be finishing something else at the time but I’m pleased to say that my SLANZA (www.slanza.co.nz] Collected mag article on Ross Todd will hit the streets on time too!

I was checking out twitter and after phoning my daughter to check protocol on re-tweeting (as you do!) I came across this 10 Ways Librarians Can be a Marketing Genius Like Lady Gaga  

this super-duper slideshare from Gwyneth Jones @gwynethjones aka The Daring Librarian.

I have a horrible feeling that I missed her session at the ISTE conference Arrgh!  But, she shares her stuff and I like what she says very much.  This is so clever and I realized when I went through Gwyneth’s list that I was really good at some on the list, OK at others and useless at some too. 

Although I know that our library is a pretty cool place for teachers and students, I now have some new ideas for continued improvement of services/processes; tweaking what’s already happening, as well as “now for something completely different” so that our library continues to develop and change with the times. It goes without saying that I’ll be combining this with ideas from Ross Todd’s EBP (evidence based practice) workshop and I wonder what I’ll be able to say about the even greater learning outcomes that I know we will achieve. I’ll be sharing those in a great big <shout out> somewhere, sometime. Imagine if we all did that!

So thanks for the inspiration today Gwyneth Jones and with Lady Gaga in mind MrsPotts is getting out the red velvet coat to wear and with a spoon in hand will sail into the library with greater purpose tomorrow. There might even be a photo! 

Fab Facebook

Well after having such a busy week MrsPotts is in dire need of a sit down with a nice hot cup of tea...  Having read the blogs of other teachers, something that I've noticed is that there's often/sometimes a disclaimer of some sort that says that the views on the blog are that of the writer and have nothing to do with the school/employer. I reckon my boss won't mind if MrsPotts (who's that? he'd say!) wrote something contentious or that she was having a brandy instead of a cuppa!!     but I digress...

I've just checked my Facebook Newsfeed. As well as finding out what my friends & family are up to, I get love getting updates from groups such as Edutopia, Kathy Schrock, edTed, Kleinspiration, Edudemic, ISTE & Powerful Learning Practice to name a few.  
It's great for learning new stuff and getting great ideas! There are all sorts of goodies to be found as more and more organisations and individuals form groups, and more and more people realise the potential of being connected by/with social media.
Today I loved reading about the Connected Educators Book Club. Check it out http://bit.ly/N49rEU

There's a MrsPottsPoints fb Group (ask to join if you'd like :-)  which I use like a professional learning group for teachers at my school as well as friends in teaching who are interested in what I do. The idea is to inspire and challenge others to try something new and share thoughts and ideas.

We don't have a Viscount(super!)Library(learning and information centre!) fb page - yet. It's only a matter of time my friends. Big ideas...Small steps.

Nearly the weekend, happy days from MrsPotts.

Ross Todd rocks!

It's not very often that MrsPotts is able to sit still for hours on end listening to one person speak.
Short. Attention. Span. So much so that at conferences I try to sit near the door for a quick get-away if my attention isn't grabbed and held in the first five minutes!   (On reflection it's probably just a bad habit I've developed!)
A-ha! Today was different. I sat and listened to just one person - Dr Ross Todd @RossJTodd - All day.

I'd heard him speak before and he is such a nice man that he even said he remembered meeting me at the IASL conference in 2008 at the University of California at Berkeley, USA: "World Class Learning and Literacy through School Libraries"
He was great then... and was even more interesting today as he spoke about evidence-based practice for school libraries. It was about how libraries impact on student learning and how we can set about gathering evidence (data) and using this evidence for continued development and continuous improvement. There was a model of the school library as a 'dynamic agent of learning' amongst the heaps (yes, heaps!) of slides. He talked about gathering evidence in our schools & posed more than one question for us to consider including; What differences do my school library and its initiatives make to student learning outcomes?

Dr Todd challenged us, questioned us, talked at us and with us (in small groups) and at the end of the day, asked for our specific ideas on our EBP action plans. WHEW! He did not draw breath!
I sat in my seat all day.

ISTE12 sharing time

Hi there folks...Having recently returned from the amazing experience that was ISTE2012 in San Diego http://www.isteconference.org/2012/ Mrs Potts has decided that it's time to share.
I reckon that every second person at the conference had an ipad... maybe everyone! Did I mention there were somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand people at the conference? Just A-mazing (ah, not only the size of the conference but how many ipads that is!)  It was pretty mind-blowing just to be there amongst it all.
Overall... fantastic keynotes (Sir Ken Robinson, Marc Prensky (digital natives guy) along with the scientist who plays a scientist on The Big Bang Theory, & Dr Yong Zhao -more about him later) great poster sessions, kids presenting and talking about their learning with technology; sessions on absolutely everything,  from apps to Google, QR codes , using ipads, videoing, connecting, sharing, social media in all its forms, flipping classrooms, creativity and so on and so on... and for any library folk who just might happen to be reading, a game show with Joyce Valenza, Doug Johnson's hilarious t-shirts and Dr Lesley Farmer. Whew!
The good news is my friends that you can check out the keynotes and other stuff from the conference too. I follow iste12 on facebook and it's great. They are now putting up links to lots of things and today's one is this

Post about Dr. Yong Zhao, #ISTE12 keynote speaker. "test scores do not reflect teacher ability or student's future"http://ow.ly/caywi

I could go on, but for now my garden beckons while the sun's shining and before the weeds really take charge.
There'll be more about iste12 so watch this space. Happy rest-of-the-holidays from Mrs Potts