[CALIBK12] CSLA at CATE Conference

[Jackie Siminitus]

CSLA advocated for strong school libraries at the CATE Conference on Friday and Saturday.  See the CSLA EdTech Blog if you can't see the photo (below) of the booth, CSLA VP-Communications Pete Doering, CSLA banner and lunchbag at http://cslaedtecheresources.blogspot.com/
 
CSLA had a booth at the California Association of Teachers of English (CATE) Conference in Santa Clara on February 20-21, 2009. Attendance was down to about 650, thanks to the economy. Of those, about 30 teachers stopped by the booth each of the two days, yielding 60 conversations.  Not bad!  Several teacher librarians were at CATE, including a presenter or two.  Our booth was next to CRA, the California Reading Association.



We promoted 3 topics, accompanied by handouts:


California School Libraries Make a Difference (Dissertation research by CSLA member Dr. Doug Achterman - 1-page handout)

Classroom Learning 2.0 (CSLA 2.0 Team professional development tutorial.)

CSLA Good Ideas and CSLA Journal 
Topic #1 was a call for library advocacy. Some teachers bragged about their teacher librarians and librarian staff, while others expressed sorrow about not having a librarian or about to lose their librarian. One teacher asked for an extra copy of the handout for putting on the staff bulletin board (great idea!) 
 
Topic #2 was "good news" about a fun, free way to learn the web 2.0 tools. CSLA's Classroom Learning 2.0 is a timely gift to teachers. We got a dozen enthusiasic thank-yous for the inviation to participate in our online tutorial. Some also said they planned to share it with their colleagues and take it together.
 
Topic #3 CSLA's Good Ideas and Journal were of interest especially when the discussions got into collaboration with school librarians and how we promoted/shared good ideas. 
 
OTHER:

All but one CATE exhibitor offered print-based products. The one technology-based product was for studying Shakespeare individually or as a 2-person team. Apparently, many English teachers told the vendor that because they didn't have any or many Internet workstations in the classroom, it might be better to contact the school librarians because they had computer labs and broadband access. [The vendor now has the dates of the November 2009 CSLA conference in Ontario.]
Huckebee's was the only booksale vendor there and they asked for the CSLA Conference date and location. 
CATE has a tradition of serving exibitors a 5pm reception at the end of day #1.  Wine, fancy food, and doorprizes from the CATE Board.
Exhibits were in a huge tent or "Big Top" in the parking lot of the Marriott Hotel.  It worked well.    

Best wishes. 

- Jackie Siminitus 
CSLA2team at yahoo.com  
http://SchoolLibraryLearning2.blogspot.com  
http://ClassroomLearning2.blogspot.com  
http://DiscoveringAT.blogspot.com


      
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