VLA 2011 Presentation

I presented at my first library conference on Friday, October 28. It was at the 2011 VLA Annual Conference. This year's conference was held in Portsmouth, VA. Our session was apart of the Academic Track fro the conference and was submitted to and accepted by the College and Research Libraries (VLACRL) section of VLA, which means it was a peer-reviewed session. This makes my inner scholar so happy for some reason. :) Our session was entitled Free Tech Tools that Enhance Library Instruction. In it we covered Prezi, Mindomo and Bubbl.us, Jing, Lino it, Poll Everywhere and Google Forms. For each tool we covered we gave background info, things to know about the tool and examples of how we have used it in library instruction.

My co-presenters and I presented to a room of 70+ librarians. The session volunteer joked that if any hotel management had happened by our room, they would have made about half the people leave because of fire code violations! The presentation went great. My co-presenters and I couldn't have been happier. We received a lot of great feedback from the evaluations. We also got invited to write an article on our session for the next issue of Virgina Libraries. So, if all goes well I will be a published author soon.

Here's the Prezi we used during our session.

My First Concurrent Session!

Back in May, I submitted (along with 2 other NC library friends) a proposal to the third annual VLACRL Conference-Within-a-Conference, "Academic Libraries: Adding Value in a Time of Change." It's being held during the 2011 Virginia Library Association Conference in Portsmouth, VA. The conference is being held on October 27-28. Our session is schedule for 1:15-2:00 p.m., on Friday, October 28, in the Jefferson room of the Renaissance Hotel. They only accepted 12 sessions out of the 34 submission they received. To say I am excited is an understatement!

The proposal we submitted was entitled Free Tech Tools for Better Library Instruction. During this session we will be covering Prezi, Jing, Bubbl.us, Poll Everywhere, Lino It and Google Forms. Here is the abstract we wrote for it: During these times of cutbacks, instruction librarians are looking to provide dynamic instruction with no budget. Several free tools exist that can add value to our instruction classes. This session will look at some of these free tools and show how they can be used to enhance instruction.

Now the real fun begins. We get to plan the session! Wish us luck! :)