10 Days, 9 Guest Speakers

James, Diana, Maria (& Maria's nephew!) chez moi

I didn't think I'd be able to surpass last year's arrangement where I arranged to host 5 guest speakers in 10 days. My husband likes to remind me that the middle initial of my name really stands for "push-it" and he may be on to something. For the 2019 Summer blended Library AQ course, there were 9 guest speakers. Who were they? What did they contribute? Check it out below.

1) Neil Andersen on Monday, July 8, 2019 (Day 3)

Neil came as a representative of the AML (Association for Media Literacy) to talk with our course participants about incorporating media literacy teaching and learning strategies into our School Library Learning Commons (SLLC). He provided so many useful tools and techniques and prompted some thoughtful discussion.

2) Jill Kelsall on Tuesday, July 9, 2019 (Day 4)

Jill joined us from the top of a hill so she could get a signal to reach us via Google Meet. Jill connected with us to talk about what it is like to run a bilingual school library. I hadn't originally anticipated Jill's participation. While talking with the AQ attendees prior to Day 4, the topic of French collections arose. It turns out that 9 of the 15 individuals were in schools that had dual-track libraries. Andrea Sykes gave me a list of talented, experienced teacher-librarians with bilingual school library collections and Jill agreed to join us remotely. Thanks for taking time out of your vacation, Jill!

3) Peter McAsh on Thursday, July 11, 2019 (Day 6)

Peter's visit started as a joking exchange on Facebook! I mentioned my Library AQ course via a link to last week's blog and Peter offered to be a speaker despite having no experience in library. Peter DID have something to offer the group; as the president of ECOO (Education Computing Organization of Ontario), he talked about subject associations and gave us a virtual mini-tour of Teach Ontario. Peter even arranged to have a SIG (Special Interest Group) set up for us related to teacher-librarianship. (I'll post something there soon Peter; it's on my list of things to do!)

4) Tim Pedersen on Thursday, July 11, 2019 (Day 6)

Tim's virtual visit to our class was hastily arranged but so worth it. Once again, the inspiration came from the AQ participants themselves. They wondered about decisions related to the school library from the perspective of a school administrator. I reached out on Twitter, and Jennifer Brown connected us with Tim, her principal. What made this visit extra-appreciated was that Tim was actually arranging to leave the province the very next day! It took a little bit of organization behind the scenes and there was a bit of uncertainty about what this interaction would look like, but I was so delighted with how it turned out. A useful tip: if time is limited, try generating your list of questions beforehand and sending it, so that the interviewee has time to prepare thorough answers. This was also the first time Tim had used Google Meet for a virtual conference - I was really impressed with how willing Tim was to try new things.

5) Kate Johnson-McGregor on Monday, July 15, 2019 (Day 7)

Kate fulfilled many needs with her presentation to us. As a secondary teacher-librarian in a board not represented at the table (since our participants came from Toronto DSB, York Region DSB, Peel DSB and Dufferin-Peel Catholic DSB), she shared with us about how we can help transition students from elementary to secondary and from secondary to post-secondary. She also talked about some of her work with Treaty Recognition Week. The audience loved Kate's infectious laugh and practical strategies for making the library inviting to all.

6) Patricia McNaughton on Tuesday, July 16, 2019 (Day 8)

Pat has been in the library during the Additional Qualification course since the beginning, but in her capacity as a dedicated volunteer and weeder. On the third-last day of the course, she wore a different hat - that of a presenter, to talk about collaborative weeding and book repair. Pat speaks from a lot of experience. She has been helping in the Agnes Macphail PS Library since 2010 and her daughter, the incomparable Kim Davidson, is also a TDSB teacher-librarian. We even got the participants to help us weed parts of the library for us!

7) James Saunders on Tuesday, July 16, 2019 (Day 8)

8) Maria Martella on Tuesday, July 16, 2019 (Day 8)

We love to experiment during our Library AQ course. (I won't mention the non-human guests.) Would it be possible to have two presentations occur simultaneously? Why not try? James Saunders represents Saunders Book Company and Maria Martella represents Tinlids. Both came to talk about the Canadian book publishing industry, supporting Canadian vendors, and school library collection development. They brought freebies and years of experience to share. 

9) Jennifer Brown on Wednesday, July 17, 2019 (Day 9)

Jennifer Brown was my only "repeat guest" from last year. It wasn't because last year's guests weren't worthy - Melanie, Michelle, Jennifer and Alanna were all fantastic but mostly unavailable during this time - but Jennifer came both as a representative of the Ontario School Library Association (OSLA) and to talk about equity in the SLLC. Jenn is a passionate speaker and loves school libraries (which is a good trait to have in our OSLA President). She stayed until after 5:00 pm chatting with some of the attendees. 

Neil, Jill, Peter, Tim, Kate, Pat, James, Maria and Jenn - thank you so much for giving your time and expertise to our group of library learners. A lot of the positive feedback revolved around having a variety of speakers and experiences to benefit from. Your presence made the course that much better. What next year holds, I have no idea!