11th Annual 21st Century Learning Conference

Librarians as drivers of change and influencers of innovation in schools.

Leadership is an opt-out activity. All educators, including librarians have the potential to drive change and innovation within their school. Becoming a more effective library leader depends on understanding your personal strengths and inclinations as a leader. 

Based on the Four Frames of Leadership, described by Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal in Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership, this session will provide the opportunity to reflect on your leadership style and understand your personal “frames profile”. 

Participants will consider new perspectives about the future role of libraries and librarians and be encouraged to collaborate on real-world examples of change opportunities and challenges. 

This experiential learning workshop will explore practical strategies for how librarians can exercise constructive influence within their library unit, their library as a whole, and the broader school context, to positively contribute to the future of learning. 

All K-12 educators and administrators are encouraged to attend.

Join author-illustrator team Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann in a sneak peek, behind-the-scenes look at how they work in tandem to create joint projects. How do two experienced artists, who have worked on many projects individually, figure out how to tackle a project together? What do the differing opinions, talents, and tastes of each bring to the project?  How does this affect the finished book?  And how can you apply what they’ve discovered to your own classroom collaborations?  This fast-paced workshop will provide plenty of tips and tricks as Candace and Eric lead you through their journey of discovery with energy, humor, and candor.   

The focus of this presentation will revolve around the following question:
What would an ideal library/learning space look like to meet the needs of our 21st-century learning community and what kind of framework would support it?

This was the question that the librarians were asking while engaging in a dialogue with the ed-tech coaches. This presentation will describe the journey that our school librarians and ed-tech coaches took. How they merged into one department, took on developing a Technology and Information Literacy Framework, and as a consequence, how they began the process to redesign their learning spaces. 

Knowledge Management (KM) is an advanced management strategy and has the potential to be extensively adopted in schools to foster the “sharing of innovative practice, avoiding duplication and discouraging the loss of valuable knowledge,” according to Thambi and O’ Toole. (as cited in Chu 2016)

Traditionally, school library is the heart of information management in school where it manages the print and non print collection. With technology, the school librarian can play one of the key roles to implement knowledge management (KM). Information is the basis of knowledge and with knowledge, better decisions can be made.

This workshop provides an introduction to KM with real life examples of how KM is implemented in schools and the prerequisite of introducing KM in schools. We will elaborate on why school library has the best position to promote KM with the senior management. Participants can fill out an electronic questionnaire to evaluate their school’s readiness for KM. There will be a review on the common challenges faced by schools when implementing KM and brainstorm the related solutions. By the end of the session, participants will be able to come up with a follow up action.

References:
Chu, K. W. (2016). Leading knowledge management in a secondary school. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(5), 1104-1147. 

A living library is a powerful event. It builds community by bringing in people to share their personal stories. Students understanding about humanity is deepened on a personal level. This workshop shares the nuts and bolts on how to organize and host a living library in your school.

Join Caldecott medalist Eric Rohmann in a fast-paced PowerPoint presentation detailing the ways children not only see, but also use pictures as language. Come and discover how the combination of pictures and words create a book that taps directly into the young reader’s imagination.  Explore the language of visual narrative, and rediscover your own “picture language.” 

Learn how bringing the high-quality news and multimedia features of The New York Times into the classroom can encourage critical thinking, inspire discussion and widen perspective.

Can kids write engaging nonfiction?  Absolutely!  In this fast-paced presentation, two-time Sibert medalist Candace Fleming will share her secrets for creating fascinating nonfiction with young writers.  Participants will not only discover strategies for effective research and directed inquiry, but they will also leave with oodles of tips and ideas to help students create exciting  “true stories” rather than dull, encyclopedic accounts.   

Candy Fleming and Eric Rohmann’s books naturally lend themselves to the design thinking process. In their books, the characters both real and fictional, encounter a problem that employs imagination, logic, scientific principles, empathy, and perseverance in order to arrive at solutions that are both inspired and innovative. Whether it’s exploring the depths of the ocean in search of the elusive squid or engaging in problem solving to “rescue” a plane from a tree, their books engage readers in critical thinking. This session focuses on books by Candy and Eric that will prompt participants to investigate, define, ideate, create (prototype), and reflect (test). Design Thinking becomes more powerful when framed around literature that prompts discussion and generates questions. This workshop would expand on the presentations at this conference by Candy Fleming and Eric Rohmann and provide strategies for how to elevate their books to engage students in innovative design. 

Student voice, disruption, student agency - just today's educational buzz words that we pay lip service to?

No way! These are real opportunities for teachers, librarians, coaches and administrators to cultivate a transformational reading culture.

Combining real life examples of how we have worked with key stake holders in our school community with hands on activities to boost your school reading culture, this workshop will leave you ready to turn your ideas into action!

Strong partnerships with the right people = right book, right time, right kid 

School libraries are multipurpose spaces that are a center of student life, incorporating socialization, filming, language learning, events, professional development, group collaboration, community usage, literacy, technology, and more.  In this workshop, we will discuss things to consider when designing and redesigning this multi-faceted space, and also look at pitfalls we have discovered on our own design and renovation journey.

As educators, librarians, and designers, it is of utmost importance to create learning environments that are inspiring and purposeful. A structure to get started, and specific ideas to maximize space usage, plus innovations we are loving, will be shared. Many schools in the region are in the process of renovation and redesign; this workshop aims to lend a helping hand to the design, or redesign, process. 

This proposed workshop cuts across multiple disciplines and tackles the timely subject of the future of the textbook. An enduring staple of higher education, there is so much talk today about textbooks: the skyrocketing cost, the seemingly endless stream of new editions, the wide variety of formats and delivery options, expensive online enhancements, open source alternatives, and so on. Much of the dialogue is focused on the prohibitive expense faced by students, and rightly so. One study showed that textbook costs have risen over 800 percent since 1978, and another found that some seventy percent of students have not been buying all or even any of the required textbooks because they simply could not afford them. But there needs to be more than just cost involved in the discussion about textbooks. In a time when vast swaths of recorded human history and culture are being digitized and made available on demand, literally in the palm of one’s hand, is there really a need or a future for these bulky general topic surveys? Might there not be a better ways to condense a broad topic and more effectively present it? Or do we need to move away from general surveys entirely and focus instead on giving students the tools they need to sort out so much information that is now available at their fingertips? This presentation will explore the current state of the textbook and the future and touch on the provocative topic as to whether textbooks are really of value to a student or are they an expensive crutch that provides professors with a “course in a box” paid for by students.

Thomas Labe is the founder and CEO of Vertext Publishing, a company that will begin distribution of purely online teaching materials of the highest caliber on December 31, 2018. The format will be a unique one, allowing institutions to subscribe for a nominal annual fee and provide the resources absolutely free to all faculty and students. The materials will be continually updated, completely eliminating the need for new editions.

Full biography can be found at

http://thomaslabe.com/

A graphic for the presentation can be found at:
http://thomaslabe.com/21st-Century-Learning-2019/Textosaurus.jpg 

This session will be an introduction to a range of tech tools to support the writing process - prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing.
We will focus on how technology can support students struggling with writing to tell us what they know, what they have learnt and what they feel - not only using ‘traditional writing’ frameworks that incorporate tools such as word prediction, speech recognition, spelling and vocabulary support, but also via the use of audio and video, the use of cloud based options.
Participants will have an increased understanding of the options available in supporting writing using technology.

Library as a heart for collaboration, innovation, inquiry and reflection
International Schools often have well resourced  libraries with fantastic collection of books, magazines and online materials. Still, they are often used quite one-dimensionally, focusing only on reading and storing information. How to bring your library into the heart of all learning, encouraging collaboration and innovation, inquiry and reflection? How to make your library ‘the place to be’ in your school? Learning through some examples and experiences from around the world, we will explore how your school can activate your  library to really be at the heart of everything you do. 

In classrooms where inquiry thrives, literature is a primary resource as well as a teaching partner, informant, and question poser. Literature naturally triggers readers’ questions because of its interesting topics, intriguing language, and captivating illustrations. Discover how to spark wonderings through books that generate inquiry so that students can be problem-posers and engage in design thinking.   

An opportunity to meet Eric and Candy and get one of their books signed.