Use hashtags for professional development

Are you a passionate school librarian looking for new ways to stay up on the latest library and education news?

Do you tweet?

If not, you are missing out!

Come on over to Twitter and join in on the conversation. You can learn from and share with your virtual teacher-librarian colleagues from around the globe, and all in 140 characters or less. Twitter makes this experience even easier with hashtags.

A hashtag is # symbol. When placed in front of a word or phrase, the hashtag categorizes that word or phrase into a searchable and easy to follow topic. You can even save that search in your twitter account for ease of use in the future. Below are some widely used library and education related hashtags.

#edchat
#librarians
#libraries
#strugglingreaders
#teacher-librarian
#titletalk
#TLChat

Online training for school librarians from ALA

Want to get professional development in the comfort of your own home (or library)? The American Library Association (ALA) has a site that will connect you with a variety of online courses and webinars specifically for school librarians.There are live and archived webinars.

For example, you can watch "Battle Bullying with Books: Celebrate No Name-Calling Week Booklist Webcast from 01/25/2011)" any time for free.

Another option is "Navigating the Divide between Teens and Tweens" offered for a fee from YALSA.

The American Association of School Librarians e-Academy

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) provides online training for school library professionals via the AASL e-Academy. The e-Academy offers a variety of four-week courses that are asynchronous and Moodle-based. Participants will receive 12 hours of learning and collaboration from experts on a particular subject. After completing the course’s culminating project, all participants will receive a certificate which can be used to apply for continuing education credits through their school district.

Check out the the AASL e-Academy web site for a calendar of upcoming courses.

Attend free webinars at TL Virtual Cafe!

Have you heard of TL Virtual Cafe? This wiki offers FREE monthly webinars during the academic year on a variety of topics related to teacher librarians, technology and collaboration. No need to register for these webinars - all you have to do is (virtually) show up! All events are hosted via Blackboard. If you’re new to Blackboard, check out the tutorial here.

If you are not able to make it to the live event, you can check out past webinars archived on the wiki. Text chat archives and other materials from the webinars are also available.

The complete line-up for the 2012-2013 school year has yet to be posted, but we can look forward to hearing from Joyce Valenza this fall. Check out the wiki for more updates as the school year begins.

Upcoming Fall Events 2012:

Joyce Valenza & our PL in a Learning Smackdown

The Blog's Beginnings

Hello School Library World!

Members of LIS773 - Summer 2012

We are graduate students in the GSLIS at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. This blog started as a project in our School Libraries Management class during Summer 2012. We are working with the Illinois School Library Media Association (ISLMA) to create a centralized repository of professional development opportunities for you - our fellow school librarians.

This blog will be provide information about upcoming opportunities that will help us maintain professional certification and improve our school libraries. This resource will include a calendar with training opportunities, links to other professional organizations and updates of new classes or training as they become available.

Subscribe or bookmark now so you can be in the loop!