Monday, October 26, 2020

Keynoting Virtually for MSLA

 


My latest selfie was taken moments before I logged on to join #MTSPDDAY2020 - the Manitoba Teachers Society Professional Development Day. What's a Toronto teacher doing at a conference in another province? I had the great honour and privilege of being the keynote speaker (and a workshop presenter) for the Manitoba School Libraries Association. I was invited via email on June 27, 2020 to speak - this was at the tail-end of the spring stage of the pandemic, when we were calling it "emergency response remote learning" and I was still the designated teacher-librarian for my school. Thankfully, the conference planning team decided not to revoke my invitation, even after my school library world was turned upside-down.


Keynoting virtually is different from doing it in person - although I'm probably not the right person to ask, since technically this was my very first keynote. Yes, this was my very first keynote address. I was nervous about it. I didn't actually research the difference between workshops and keynotes before my talks (although you can read about the differences in this article from Patricia Fripp or this post by Andrew Grant for Tirian) but I had been to enough conferences in my career to know that it needed to be different. There are so many people I need to thank for helping me prepare for my first keynote experience.

  • Julie Millan (for providing advice about creating contracts and not selling myself short)
  • Alanna King (for offering research links when I had an idea but no data to back it up)
  • Wendy Burch Jones (for listening to a run-through and giving valuable feedback)
  • Brandi Bartok (for answering questions about the event and previewing the platform with me)
  • Jonelle St-Aubyn (for co-presenting a workshop with me and organizing that part thoroughly)
I also want to thank the teacher-librarians and educators that granted me permission to use their tweets and examples in my presentation.
  • Shelly Laskin (TDSB trustee, for her live-tweet reports of the board's meeting and statistics)
  • Martha Martin (GEDSB teacher-librarian for her library-a-la-carte photo)
  • Jess Longthorne (SCDSB teacher-librarian for her Uber Reads book cart makeover)
  • Beth Lyons (PDSB teacher-librarian for her GeniusCart virtual option)
  • Wendy Burch Jones (TDSB paused-teacher-librarian for the Bitmoji class / choice board sample)
So how did it go?

I am so glad that people seemed to enjoy the session. I didn't get to see or hear reactions during the keynote because I couldn't see the back channel since I was presenting my screen. I think they laughed at the "right" parts. ("They laughed. They cried. It was better than Cats".) My technology worked. I had hoped to obtain some copyright permissions to show something that didn't materialize in time but that helped to illustrate one of my points (that we need to follow copyright even in this "Wild-West" time of online education). Brandi Bartok, MSLA President, said many parts were "quotable" and "tweetable" and she did an incredible job of live-tweeting during the keynote (and throughout the conference).

The keynote was followed by a presentation called "Agency and Equity: Students Shaping School Library Collections Pre- and Post-COVID" that Jonelle St-Aubyn and I offered. I am so grateful that Jonelle agreed to present with me. She brought a much-needed secondary school library presence and was so eloquent in advocating for student input into things that matter in School Library Learning Commons - not just books but supplies, furniture, and more. The presentation was practical, possible for many to replicate in different ways, and positive in terms of the results. Jonelle's students were so articulate and I am glad we were able to play their videos (and that the students gave consent for these artifacts to appear).

 

I don't know if this decision made me less of a traditional keynote speaker (who drops in, gives a speech, then disappears), but I actually stuck around to attend some of the other workshops. Here's a quick summary of the rest of the conference.

Friday, October 23, 2020
11:00 - 11:45 am CST

Supporting Anywhere Anytime Learning in a Climate of Uncertainty by Shauna Cornwell

Summary: Shauna shared tips and suggestions related to Pedagogy, Platforms, Planning and Practice that can be applied to in-person learning with COVID protocols, hybrid, mobile, online, blended, remote, distant, or home learning or whatever situation. (flipped classroom, enriched virtual, synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid, etc.)

3 Key Points:

1) Good teaching is good teaching. Effective practice is effective practice. It doesn't matter where. For instance, co-create class norms / agreements regardless of where you are and make them positive, few, and specific; post, review and teach to and about these norms frequently. Practice can also be similar in-person or online (Greet / Teach / Show / Do / Keep Thinking or Engage / Explore / Explain / Elaborate / Evaluate).

2) Plan with different possible scenarios in mind. Plan long-range, mid-range and short-range and ensure your plans can be delivered in whatever mode (F2F, blended, or fully remote).

3) There are many useful resources, such as the UNESCO policy guidelines for mobile learning, John Hattie's Visible Learning, the SAMR model, Manitoba's Learning with ICT Across the Curriculum document, the ISTE guidelines, Fisher's Distance Learning Playbook, etc.

So What? Now What?
My own staff would be sad to hear that Manitoba teachers are permitted to use Seesaw as well as Google Classroom as part of their online platform repertoire - Ontario educators aren't allowed to use Seesaw even though it is very popular with kindergarten teachers and families. If I have time, I'd be interested in reading John Hattie's Visible Learning. I wonder how close it ties into Tolisano and Hale's A Guide to Documenting Learning.  

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Friday, October 23, 2020
2:00 - 2:45 pm CST

Story Walk (R): What it is and How to create your own by Holly Pike and Karen Burkett

Summary: A story walk is a physical copy of a book mounted on signs placed along a walk. It was created by www.kellogghubbard.org/storywalk and these library professionals described their experience doing on in May 2020.

(I planned to attend a session at 1:00 pm CST but indulging in a whim to pick up lunch from a restaurant led me to being stuck in an unexpected mid-day traffic jam and unable to return to my computer in time.)

3 Key Points:

1) You can collaborate with different subject specialists to incorporate activities into the stations (e.g. science, physical education, music).

2) The benefits are that it's an active way to experience a book as a family and connects families to the school community. Plus it generates great PR - their school was on the news.

3) Consider concerns and be prepared. (e.g. respect copyright by buying 2 copies of the chosen book [with large illustrations, short text, and an exciting story] to use, monitor the signs and use twist ties and waterproofing materials to protect them from vandalism and theft, and check local bylaws on where to place signs so pedestrians will be safe)

So What? Now What? 
I would love to create a Story Walk outside for my school. It reminds me of a version that Joanna Leong, our ESL teacher, did in the hallways using a book about Chinese New Year. Jo-Anne Gibson gave a great suggestion about schools making and sharing their Story Walk kits with each other. They are a lot of work to create and it'd be nice to have others benefit from them after your school has enjoyed it.

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Thanks again to the Manitoba School Libraries Association for including me in their learning. It was a chance for me to be a teacher-librarian again and hang out with other wonderful teacher-librarians.




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1 comment:

  1. NikiOctober 26, 2020 at 6:02 PM

    Awesome reflections! I'm so glad you were a part of our day! <3
    One slight revision though, not all school divisions are allowed to use SeeSaw or Google Classroom. My SD is strictly Microsoft tools.

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