Chicago News

Well, here I am in the Windy City, which didn't feel very windy. In fact, after what we've been enduring weatherwise in MA, it felt downright balmy - even with the early morning rains!

My flight didn't get into town with enough time to do any real sightseeing, so I walked around the general vicinity of the historic Hilton where I'm staying, and looked at the archival photographs on display which documented its storied history since 1927, including the 1968 Vietnam protests during the Democratic National Convention. Every president since Roosevelt has visited, including many foreign heads of state and it's quite lovely. It's also the site of many movies, including the banquet scene from Harrison Ford's "The Fugitive," among others, as well as having its heli-port used during the filming of "ER."

Afterwards, I went to the Convention Center to get the "lay of the land" for tomorrow's early meetings, then taxied to Second City. LLAMA had sponsored a night of improv there, and the comedy acts were quite entertaining.

It's now very late, and I have to get up very early. Not a great combo, but that's what happens at these conferences!

More tomorrow.......
Alma

My one free day in Chicago!

First, I have to say, I have been following Kathy Lowes Twitter Posts, and it is getting me pumped to rework our districts' standards this fall. Thank you Valerie and Kathy for all you have been doing.
My flight to Chicago was smooth, and I was at my hotel easy peasy! I went right down to the convention center and got all of my convention materials and the first person I bumped into was Linda Braun, my Technology teacher from Simmons! Had a bite to eat with a librarian from Oklahoma, who has written and implemented a grant(through IMLS) to hold a library camp for middle schoolers interested in becoming librariaians. She has set it up so that the kids travel for a week to various types of libraries i.e. academic, public, special, research, and see the inner workings of the libraries they visit. In the end they each get a bag full of books donated by the libraries they visited. They stay in hotels as they travel, and take a bus from place to place. She has had 30 campers each year. This is her third year. The kids love it She figures even if they do not become librarians, she is building advocacy for libraries. This is what I love about coming to ALA -learning from other librarians.

Since this will be my only free time in Chicago, I city I have never been to, I took a double decker tour, a very down and dirty way to get an over view and bearings in a new city.
Having left the cold damp weather of Boston, it was nice to have a bit of sun in the late afternoon, and enjoy a very interesting tour. I'm going to enjoy a little downtime now and then off to listen to a talk with Russell Freedman, Candice Fleming, and others on Celebrating Lincoln and the challenges of creating aptivating biographies for children and young adults.
tomorrow will be afull day.

Chicago Vibes

Greetings from the windy city. The sharing and excitement has begun here with an all-day training session for Learning4Life implementation chair people from each state. Kathy Lowe and I are the co-chairs for Massachusetts, and spent the day engaged in thinking and planning on how to make the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner the guiding force for school libraries in Massachusetts. The new brand name for the standards is Learning4Life. The L4L name will be heard more and more often.

Look for implementation plans coming soon from Kathy and I for our state. On to AASL Affiliate Assembly today - and more reporting later.

L4L Training4Trainers

Valerie Diggs is MSLA's AASL Standards implementation chair, with Kathy Lowe as her partner. We are at the Learning for Life Training for Trainers Summit where we will begin to develop MSLA's plan for implementing the new standards within our districts with library staff, teachers, administrators, parents, and our school communities, as well as across the state.

You can follow our summit experience on Twitter @mslalowe (#aaslL4L)

Another Year, Another Conference

MSLA members will be attending the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago July 9-15. Join us here as we document our experiences.

ALA Anaheim Slideshow

Here's just a taste of ALA in Anaheim. For all our photos, go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/ala2008msla/


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Open Forum: AASL Learning Standards Indicators & Assessment Task Force

I chair the AASL Learning Standards Indicators & Assessment Task Force, charged with developing benchmarks, model examples, and assessments based on the new Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.

I first met with my task force members, who are some of the best thinkers in the school library field, last January at the ALA Midwinter Meeting, and continued working throughout the winter and spring via email, wiki, and conference calls, on the first draft of our document, Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action (working title). It contains chapters on Skills, Dispositions, Responsibilities, Self-Assessment Strategies, and Action Examples for Standard 1 (Inquire, think critically and gain knowledge) for grades 2, 5, 8, 10 and 12+. The draft was posted online for public comment in May and early June.

At ALA in Anaheim, we held an open forum for members to meet with us to provide more input on the work we have done so far. Several people attended and provided thoughtful and very useful feedback that will inform our work on draft #2.

Later this month, the Task Force will meet in Baltimore for three days of intensive work on our second draft, which we hope to post for further public comment in September.

Working with this Task Force has been the most challenging professional experience I have ever had. I truly enjoy working with this very knowledgeable and experienced group of professionals and look forward to the publication of our work in early 2009.

Members of the AASL Learning Standards Indicators & Assessment Task Force are:
Katherine Lowe, Chair, Massachusetts School Library Association
Cassandra G. Barnett, Fayetteville High School Library, AR
Melissa P. Johnston, Silver City Elementary School, Cumming, GA
Barbara K. Stripling, New York City Department of Education
Dr. Violet H. Harada, University of Hawaii
Fran Glick, Baltimore County Public Schools, MD
Colet Bartow, Montana Office of Public Instruction
Dr. Eloise M. Long, AASL Board Liaison, Kutztown Universtiy, PA
Jonathan West, ALA Staff Liaison