Professional Learning Opportunities October 2022

I’m not sure what it is about October, maybe the Northern Hemisphere returning to school, but the amount of professional learning opportunities out there seem pretty epic at the moment. 

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Webinars and videos

Professional Pathways: Student and New Graduate information Session – ALIA – 6 October 7pm AEDT – free – online. Register here.

5 Ways to Increase Nonfiction Circulation and Create Passionate Nonfiction Readers – various presenters – 13 October 2pm EST – free – online. Register here.

Designing a Library Media Lab: Creativity, Collaboration and Communication – EduWebinar with Bel Cameron – 19 October 7pm AEST – free for members, $40 for non members – online. Register here. 

How dangerous is your collection? Hopefully not as toxic as some of the books in the Museums Victoria Library Collection. Check out this video thanks to ALIA RBSC that explores some of the heavy metals and toxins they found in the book covers in their collection. 

I love using VR and AR to engage my students. This video from Educator Alexander explores how to Immerse students in learning exploring in AR/VR with Rachelle Dene Poth. 

Conferences

The EdCamp Cardigan Camp is on again. November 12 from midnight to midnight EST, this 24 hour online conference is an incredible way to connect with school library staff from all over the world. It’s also a great way to start presenting at conferences. Facilitator applications are now open, as is registration. Find out more and register on the EdCamp website.  

The Future Ready Librarians October Summit – 15 October, 11am – 1pm ET (live only) – free – online. Register here. 

Courses

Undertaking Action Research in Your School – SLANSW Flexible Blended Learning Course – 17 October – 2 December. More information here.

Podcasts

The Joyful Learning podcast is a new podcast from teacher librarian Melissa Thom as she chats to other educators and librarians. 

I regularly listen to the Your Kids Next Read podcast. It’s always lots of fun and perfect for staying up to date with recent Australian children’s literature releases and tips for keeping children reading. Episode 66 features the Secrets of A School Librarian, but all the episodes are well worth listening to. 

Check out the latest episodes from the Future Ready Leading from the Library podcast, including Toot Your Horn: Show Off Your Library This Year (with Blake Hopper)

As always, Amy gives us four podcasts each month with School Librarians United. New this past month: Weeding Expert, Teaching Media Awareness, Recruiting and Shortages and Bilingual Librarians.

Lucas Maxwell also continues his podcast The Portable Magic Dispenser with 

One Lesson at a Time podcast from School Library Connection features K.C. Boyd hosted by Steve Tetreault on New Tools to Stamp out Bullying

Articles and Blog posts

Creating a podcast in my library is definitely on my to-do list. This article How To Create a School Library Podcast from Lucas Maxwell is a must-read for anyone wanting to start their own podcast.

Interested in some recent research around students’ reading for pleasure choices and how we can best support them? What Do Children Want To Read? A case study of how one primary school library supported reading for pleasure has some great insights. 

How do you support all students in your school library? In Different types of SEL activities to build school library culture Jessica Fitzpatrick explores some of the ideas that have worked for her.

What is the largest book in your collection? I bet it can’t beat this limited edition single volume of One Piece. 

An interesting piece on the importance of supporting the Australian book industry. 

Lucas Maxwell is here to help again with his latest BookRiot post How to help teens become great D&D Dungeon Masters. 

If you are one of the librarians facing book challenges or harassment, then this tip sheet might be helpful for you. It’s US based (but then again, most of the harassment seems to be US based). 

The Center for Scholars and Storytellers has released their Teens and Screens 2022 #Authenticity report. It has some interesting findings from their survey of US teenagers around the content they enjoy engaging with. Interesting implications for digital literacy and applying these results to what teens like to read. 

I love the articles and tips Angela Hursh shares on her website. Recent posts include Effective Library Internal Communication is Not Impossible! and Your Patrons are not Goldfish! The powerful, scientifically proven reason why your library should aim to hold the sustained attention of your community. 

Are you a Canva user? You might like these 10 Canva tricks. A few surprised me. 

Non fiction remains a popular discussion point at the moment. Here is another article about updating non fiction collections – Re-thinking Nonfiction in My School Library – with Astonishing Results by Laura Wylie de Fiallos

Okay, so it’s no secret I love Canva. But have you heard about their new Canva Docs feature? Oh the things we school library staff could do with this…

Amanda Hunt has shared the fall 2022 issue of Texas Library Journal where she features on page 12 in the article How to be a Tokstar Librarian.

How does your bias influence what you put on your school library shelves? Stock Selection for School Libraries by Elizabeth Hutchinson. 

Some more tips on How To Encourage Teens to Read

Want more professional learning?

Check out my professional learning series or have a look through last month’s professional learning list.