2008 Leadership Summit Break-out Sessions


Opening the Book: Matchmaking Nonfiction Books and Educational Technology in the Digital Age
Where do printed books fit into the digital world and the library of the future? Are they outdated? Are they part of a larger media world? How would that function. A publisher, an author and a classroom teacher with experience in virtual worlds discuss the marriage (or divorce) of print and other media.

 

Moderator: Marc Aronson

 

 

 

Marc Aronson is a historian, editor, and author who won the American Library Association's first Robert Sibert medal for excellence in informational books; Marc's recent books include Ain't Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry (with Scot R. Nelson) (National Geographic); and Unsettled: The Problem of Loving Israel (Atheneum); he writes a column and maintains the Nonfiction Matters blog for SLJ.

 

Panel:

 

Vicki Cobb

Vicki Cobb's new book, We Dare You! Hundreds of Fun Science Bets, Challenges and Experiments You Can Do at Home, is the script for an innovative multi-media apprach to learning science. These popular challenges (including those from Bet You Can't!) are the basis for one-two minute videos of kids having fun doing the tricks. She has invited the world to participate (ala You Tube) and send videos to her for editing and posting on her website www.vickicobb.com. This is an unprecedented experiment in public participation for the creation of a video reference library to be used in conjunction with a book.

 

Kevin Jarrett is a K-4 Technology Facilitator (Computer Lab Teacher) at Northfield Community School in Northfield, NJ. A Google Certified Teacher, Kevin also teaches online, part-time at Walden University in the Master’s program at the Richard W. Riley School of Education & Leadership, specializing in Integrating Technology into the Curriculum. Kevin has been active in Second Life since February 2007 following his receipt of a $10,000 Faculty Excellence Grant which enabled him to take a six-month “leave of absence” from online teaching and immerse himself in the virtual world of Second Life. He has been blogging the experience at http://www.storyofmysecondlife.com since the project began. He is a frequent presenter at state, regional and national conferences on educational technology topics including the use of virtual worlds in schools. Conference attendees may also know him from his K-8 educational technology blog, http://www.ncs-tech.org. He is @kjarrett on Twitter.

 

 

 


Digital Books for Children: Blessing, Bane, or Both?

 

The internet is changing how young children are introduced to reading. By 2025, will the Internet Cafe have replaced the public library in most communities? Will school library media centers no longer need book shelves? Will technology be used to expand library collections or dramatically change the children's book publishing world as it exists today? Join the conversation as representatives from a number of digital library sites discuss how technology may (or may not) change the world of books and libraries for children.

 

 

Moderator: Ann Carlson Weeks

 

 

Ann Carlson Weeks is Professor of the Practice in the College of Information Studies and Coordinator of the School Library Media Specialization at the University of Maryland/College Park. Her primary teaching responsibilities are in the areas of school library media program development and administration. Ann is a Principal Investigator and the Director of Collection Development for the International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL), a research project funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.   In addition to ICDL collection development, Ann’s primary area of research focuses on the use of digital resources by children, classroom teachers, school and public librarians, and research scholars. She also is studying the issues surrounding the development of effective library and information programs and services for young people in urban areas.

 

Visit the International Children's Digital Library  at http://www.childrenslibrary.org 

 

 

Panelists:

 

Anil Hemrajani -- Big Universe

 

 

Anil is the founder of BigUniverse.com, a web community for reading, creating and sharing of children's picture books onlinePrior to starting Big Universe in late 2006, Anil spent over 20 years in the information technology (IT) field helping large and small companies develop sophisticated custom enterprise software using cutting-edge technologies. In 1996, he founded a successful IT solutions company, which he sold in 2003. The author of a popular 360-page software technology book (available in 4 languages), Anil has published dozens of articles in well-known trade journals, won multiple industry awards and given talks on technology topics to thousands of people in eight countries on four continents. Anil also founded and ran a successful, award-winning online community for software programmers that grew to 100,000 registered members.

 

 

Anil has always been fascinated with children's book illustrations and cartoons. In addition, having traveled the world, he strongly believes that we live on a very small planet in a big universe and as such education for our kids is key to a better world tomorrow. It is this combination of professional skills, love of beautiful children's books, global experiences and personal beliefs that led him to launch BigUniverse.com.

 

Visit Big Universe at  http://www.biguniverse.com

 

 

 

Carl Teitelbaum -- One More Story

 

Carl Teitelbaum, co-founder and president of One More Story, has been developing the site since 1999. For twenty years prior to that, he had a full-service film production company, Five Quarters Productions. For more than ten years, Mr. Teitelbaum produced and directed live action films for Sesame Street as well as other children’s programming. He twice received Emmy Commendations for his work on Sesame Street.

 

One More Story, an early literacy and English language learner resource, is an online library of the best of classic and contemporary children’s literature. The site allows children to independently explore literature before they are fully effective readers. Pre-readers can choose a book, see the illustrations and have the story read to them. Early readers can choose the I Can Read It mode which mutes the sound track and allows children to read a book on their own. If there is an unfamiliar word, simply click on that word and that word is spoken by the narrator. Books are read by professional actors and each book has an original score written by Robby Merkin, former Music Director of Sesame Street. One More Story recently received a James Patterson Page Turner Award for finding “original and effective ways to spread the excitement of books and reading.” 

 

Visit One More Story at http://www.onemorestory.com

 

 

 

Matt Keller - Capstone Press

 

 

Matt Keller's career has been entirely in educational publishing. He started out as a college sales representative for Prentice-Hall. Matt then went to work in marketing for special needs students at AGS Publishing. He began as a product manager, eventually becoming vice-president of marketing. From there Matt moved into the school library publishing market as vice president of marketing for Capstone Publishers and is now president of Capstone Press.

 

Boost literacy skills and have fun reading with Capstone Interactive Library!  With features no e-book can match, our Interactive books are just the ticket for emergent, struggling, and reluctant readers. Using engaging content designed to meet curriculum standards, Capstone Interactive Library is an ideal format for introducing content in an appealing way while helping students learn to read.

 

Visit the Capstone Interactive Library at http://www.capstoneinteractivelibrary.com

 

 

 

Jennifer Slackman -- Scholastic BookFlix

 

 

As Director of Marketing/Product Management in Scholastic’s Education Division, Jennifer Slackman oversees all sales and marketing efforts for the company’s portfolio of online learning programs.  In this role Jennifer also works in collaboration with Scholastic’s product development, editorial, sales, and technology teams to ensure that each program best meets the needs of schools and public libraries. Prior to joining Scholastic in 2002, Jennifer worked in public relations supporting a number of consumer technology clients.  Jennifer holds a BA in English from The Pennsylvania State University and is currently pursuing an MBA at Columbia University.

 

Scholastic BookFlix is an online literacy resource that pairs fictional video storybooks from Weston Woods with related nonfiction eBooks from Scholastic.  Designed for children in grades PreK-3, BookFlix engages early readers, reinforces key reading skills, and builds a love of reading and learning in all children.  

 

Visit Scholastic BookFlix at http://www.scholastic.com/bookflix.

 

 

 


Can You Hear Me Now?

The spoken word is experiencing a renaissance thanks to the ease of delivery and storage. Storytelling is the oldest form of literature and today's digital containers allow students to transport literature in a variety of formats. Our session will explore ways to transfer the voice of the author through download, portable preloaded audio players, and devices that combine text and sound. Industry experts will describe innovative school programs, pros and cons of competing formats, the financial considerations of digital audio, reflect on Digital Rights Management protection, global changes in digital media, and gaze into the crystal ball to forecast the future.

 

 

 

Moderator: Mary Burkey

Mary Burkey is a National Board Certified teacher-librarian at Liberty Middle School in Columbus, Ohio. She has served as the chair of ALSC’s Notable Children’s Recordings Committee and was a member of the development Task Force & served as first chair of ALA’s Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production. She writes Book Links Magazine’s audiobook column “Voices in My Head,” the Audiobooker blog http://audiobooker.blogspot.com, and serves as an Audies Award judge for the Audio Publishers Association.

 

Panel:

 

Steve Potash

 

Steven Potash is President and CEO of OverDrive, Inc., a digital media company he founded in 1986. Under his leadership, OverDrive has become a leading digital media distributor and Digital Rights Management (DRM) clearinghouse for hundreds of leading publishers, studios, and media producers in the US and abroad. OverDrive distributes over 100,000 premium eBook, audiobook, music, and video titles to a network of over 6,000 libraries and online retail websites.

 

Pamela Smith, Senior Vice President . BWI and Follett Library Resources.

Pamela Smith is one of the two Senior Vice Presidents who are responsible for the overall success of BWI and Follett Library Resources. For both BWI and Follett Library Resources, Pamela’s areas of concentration are business development and strategic planning; field and inside sales; marketing; cataloging; library collection development; and human resources. Pamela has a proven track record of delivering results. She has a Bachelor of Science and MBA in Business Administration from Brenan University in Georgia along with over 26 years of experience servicing the library marketplace. Before joining Follett, Pamela held a variety of increasingly responsible positions including Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Baker & Taylor, Inc. as well as Vice President and General Manager of Ingram Library Services.

 

Daniel R. Albohn, Manager, New Business Development, Sony Inc.

Daniel Albohn is the manager of business development for the Sony eReader, a portable digital book reader.

 

Caroline Barni, Director of Marketing, Playaway / Findaway World.

Caroline Barni is the Director of Marketing and Public Relations for Playaway, a pre-loaded digital audio player.

 

 

 


 

PRINT BOOKS 2.0

 

The attraction of 2.0 changes in print books is often overlooked in conversations about dynamic media for digital youth. Over the past decade print books have changed radically. It takes only a glance at the 2008 Caldecott Award given to the illustrator of a 544 picture book to verify this! Quite possibly these changes in print books have been influenced by the digital environment. Graphic novels, paper sculpture, words merging with pictures and pictures becoming words, wild and wonderful designs, multiple voices and perspectives -- all have great potential for enhancing the interactive, social nature of reading. Should these books be considered part of a collection of dynamic media for youth? How can they be evaluated and used?

How important are they in the 2.0 world? Join the conversation.

 

Moderator: Eliza T. Dresang

 

 

Eliza Dresang is the Eliza Atkins Gleason Professor at the Florida State University College of Information and author of the award-winning and highly influential book Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age. She is the receipient of the 2007 ALA/Scholastic Library Publishing Award presented for "unusual contribution to the stimulation and guidance of reading by children and young people." At FSU, she has served as co-Director of Project LEAD, which, supported by grants from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, has provided fellowships for 30 teacher-leaders to obtain a master's degree and school media certification. She founded the Interdisciplinary Center for Leadership, Technology Integration, and Critical Literacies (I-CELTIC) at FSU. Active in ALA, she has chaired the Newbery and Batchelder Committees, was a member of the Margaret A. Edwards, Caldecott, and Notable Books Committees, which she will chair in 2009, and served on the ALA Council and the ALSC Board of Directors for 8 years.

 

Read the most recent update of Radical Change at

http://www.citejournal.org/vol8/iss3/seminal/article2.cfm (Sept 2008).

 

 

Panelist: Lucretia Miller

 

Lucretia (Lucia) Miller is a Media Specialist at Chaffee Trail Elementary in Duval County (Jacksonville), Florida, and she has taught for more than eight years. She received her bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and her Master’s from the College of Information at Florida State University. In 2007 Lucretia was chosen Duval County's Teacher of the year from a teaching staff of more than 8000; she was the first media specialist so honored. Lucretia believes that teaching should build a foundation of learning in our youth in order to provide them with skills to become thinkers, risk-takers and communicators. She has made radical changes in the lives of her young readers, and is passionate about teaching for the 21st century student by engaging today's digital learner.

 

 

 

Panelist: Michael Dahl

 

 

Michael Dahl is the suthor of more than 100 books for children and young adults.  He has written The Everything Kid's Joke Book and Gotcha Covered! (with Kathleen Baxter for Libraries Unlimited) on nonfiction books that get kids excited about reading.  His Finnegan Zwake mytery series published by Simon & Schuster won rave reviews and two of its titles were shortlisted for the Edgar and the Anthony Mystery Awards.  His nonfiction has twice won the AEP Distinguished Achievement Award.  Dahl is the Editorial Director for Stone Arch Books (part of Capstone Publishers) based in Minneapolis.  He has spoken at numerous schools, libraries, bookstores, and conferences across the country, ncluding ALA, AASL, FAME (08), NYAEC, TLA, NOLA, and IRA.

 

 

 Panelist: Rachel Griffiths

 

 

  Rachel Griffiths is an editor with Scholastic Press. Currently she is the editor for The 39 Clues series, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list with Rick Riordan’s The 39 Clues Book 1: The Maze of Bones. In addition to working on the books, Rachel oversees creation of the series’ collectible cards and content for www.the39clues.com. Rachel’s list includes bestselling authors Emily Rodda and Kathy Lasky, rising stars such as Deep Down Popular author Phoebe Stone, and new voices such as Martin Mordecai, author of the next summer’s Blue Mountain Trouble.

 

 


Reference in the Digital Age

 

Is there such a service as reference in the digital age? Does the library still need to provide a print reference collection? As budgets are cut and users have more access to the Internet, has the reference collection become a thing of the past? Where is our reference collection located and is it accessible? Who becomes the gatekeeper to quality reference information when everyone has access to "the answer" outside the library walls? How do we determine our reference priorities when funding is low and it's not often clear what reference priorities our users have? Join us as we discuss how students use reference collections in the digital age and the library's responsibility in not only providing quality resources on a variety of topics but also how we can provide them with these references at the point of need and beyond the library walls. To read more about this topic or to add content, go to the Reference Remix wiki page.

 

Moderator: Shonda Brisco

 

 

Shonda Brisco is the Assistant Professor / Curriculum Materials Librarian for the Mary L. Williams Curriculum Materials Library at Oklahoma State University. She has worked at the K-12 public and private levels, as well as the academic and special library levels, for 25 years. She is a member of the American Library Association, YALSA, AASL, the Oklahoma Library Association, the Texas Library Association, the Texas Computer Educator's Association, and the International Society for Technology in Education. She currently writes the "Digital Resources" column for School Library Journal and is always searching for new ways to teach students and teachers ways to use technology in the library.

 

Panel:

 

Sue Polanka

 

Sue Polanka is Head of Reference and Instruction at the Paul Laurence Dunbar Library, Wright State University. For 18 years she has provided reference service at public, academic, and state libraries. Her passion for reference has led to her love of ebooks, a topic she raves and rants about in her blog, No Shelf Required, and through her column in Booklist, Off The Shelf. Sue is Chair of the Editoral Board for Reference Books Bulletin (Booklist), where she has served as a reviewer of reference materials for over 8 years. She is also active in the OhioLINK consortium and the National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS) and frequently speaks at library and publishing related conferences.

 

 

 

At ABC-CLIO, Ms. Snyder is responsibility for establishing the company’s strategic direction and the daily operations. With 25 years of experience in the education industry, Ms. Snyder has been effective in establishing a growth strategy that has established ABC-CLIO as a premiere publisher of products for the secondary history market. She has been instrumental in producing a wide range of award-winning subscription-based web products.

 

 Prior to ABC-CLIO, Ms. Snyder conducted research on technology effectiveness and was a  classroom teacher. She holds a master's degree in instructional design from University of California at Santa Barbara.  A privately held company, ABC-CLIO headquarters are located in Santa Barbara, Calif. with branch offices in Denver, Colo., and Oxford, England.

 

Roger Rosen

 

Roger Rosen is the President of the Rosen Publishing Group, an independent publisher that has been providing supplemental educational books and materials to libraries and K-12 schools since 1950.

 

 

Roger became president of the company in 1980 and has grown the publishing program from 65 books a year to over 600, covering all curriculum areas.

 

 In 2007 the company launched a new electronics division, Rosen on Line. This division’s first electronic database, Teen Health and Wellness, Real Life, Real Answers, has won Library Journal’s Best Reference Sources of 2007, as well as been called a "Must Have" Product for Fall 2008, in the 2007 Top 10 Digital Resource by School Library Journal.
 

Mark Cummings

Vice President, Business Development

Weekly Reader Publishing Group

 

 
 

 

 


Just for Me, Just in Time....not Just in Case

 

The notion of collection is morphing. Our just-in-case traditional collections may not meet the needs of learners now used to just-in-time, just-for-me, 24/7 service and stuff. How can we use 2.0 tools to improve our delivery of content to learners and teachers? What are the new elements of collection? Does collection now include student work, digital cameras, flashsticks, wikibooks, blogs, shared media? How are databases evolving to meet users' needs for immediate, cross-vendor access? What role do RSS, widgets/gadgets play? What is the role of the virtual library and librarian? What should the K12 collection of the future look like and how can we prepare for it now?

 

Moderator: Joyce Valenza

 

 

 

Joyce Valenza has been the librarian at Springfield Township High School (PA) since 1998. For ten years, she was the techlife@school columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joyce is the author of Power Toools, Power Research Tools and Power Tools Recharged for ALA Editions. She currently blogs for School Library Journal. Her NeverendingSearch Blog won an Edublogs Award for 2005. She won the AASL/Highsmith research grant in 2005. Joyce is a Milken Educator and an American Memory Fellow. Her video series, Internet Searching Skills was a YALSA Selected Video for Young Adults in 1999. The video series Library Skills for Children was released in 2003, and her six-volume video series Research Skills for Students was released in Fall 2004. Super Searchers Go to School, was published by Information Today in 2005. Her Virtual Library won the IASL School Library Web Page of the Year Award for 2001. Joyce is active in ALA, AASL, YALSA, and ISTE and contributes to Classroom Connect, VOYA, Learning and Leading with Technology, and School Library Journal. Joyce speaks nationally about issues relating to libraries and thoughtful use of educational technology. Joyce earned her doctoral degree from the University of North Texas in August, 2007. A full profile is available at http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/jvweb.html

 

Joyce will speak about the importance of virtual service, the wonders of wikis, new things to collect and lend, using tools like Flickr to rethink collection, student information portals, the need for database change.

 

Panel:

 

Chris Harris

 

 

 

Christopher Harris, author of the Infomancy blog, is the Coordinator of the School Library System for Genesee Valley BOCES, an educational services agency that supports the libraries of 22 small, rural districts in Western NY. In addition to his writing on Infomancy, he is a regular technology columnist for School Library Journal. Along with Andy Austin, Christopher wrote an ALA TechSource Library Technology Reports issue on using the open source Drupal content management framework in libraries published in 2008. Christopher was a participant in the first American Library Association Emerging Leaders program in 2007, and was honored as a Library Journal Mover and Shaker in 2008. His recent focuses at work have been participation in the ALA/Veriozon Gaming and Literacy grant and Fish4Info. An avid gamer as well as a dedicated reader of both digital and print formats, he lives with his wife, a K-12 school librarian, and four cats in Le Roy, NY.

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

Jim Ulsh (Proquest)
Jim is the Director of Student Publishing at ProQuest and manages the CultureGrams, SIRS and eLibrary imprints – yep,  we actually classify digital products as imprints. 
 
He has been an info geek since 1997, involved in creating digital content products with stints at Infonautics, bigchalk and ProQuest.  Prior to his entry into the digital domain he traveled the country as a hazmat chemist cleaning up toxic waste (the connection between digital information and hazardous materials was so obvious….) and as an agricultural researcher.   Current diggs are crowd sourcing, data visualization and user generated content. 

 

 

 
 
Jay Flynn (Gale)
Jay is Vice President and Publisher for K-12 and Social Sciences at Gale, where he deems himself a "struggling middle manager".  His team of product managers is charged with developing new UIs, product concepts and other fancy stuff.  Jay joined Gale in 2005, forsaking the stressful pleasures of New York for the familial confines of the Upper Midwest.  Prior to Gale, Jay worked at Wolters Kluwer Health and Elsevier in a variety of sales and marketing jobs.  Jay has also taught English and German at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Concordia Language Villages, the King Faisal School in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,  and the Dolmetscher Institut in Münster, Germany.  Jay will attempt to confine his comments to his areas of interest, including: User Interfaces, Teacher/Student workflow tools, and content creation of all stripes.
 
 
 
Terri Fredericka, INFOhio (www.infohio.org)
 

 Theresa Fredericka is Executive Director of INFOhio, the "virtual" library and information network for all PreK-12 Ohio Schools. Terri Fred, as she is known to her colleagues, is devoted to helping students learn and teachers teach more effectively and efficiently. She has been a hands-on elementary librarian, a high-school librarian and a district coordinator for learning resources and technology, and has held various positions in the Departments of Education in Ohio and Kentucky. Terri believes that the future of education must include blending traditional school resources with the power of technology and the electronic tools of the information age - and that nowhere is this marriage of old and new more critical than in school libraries. So, forming a grassroots effort to create a "virtual" school library that provided all elementary and secondary school students with equal access to the online resources they needed was a natural career progression.

 

Today, students, educators and parents across the state recognize INFOhio as a proven and essential resource that improves student achievement, prepares graduates to continue their education, creates qualified workers for an ever-increasing high-tech world and fosters the view that learning is a lifelong process. Going forward, Terri is focused on driving school libraries to make sure that no Ohio student is left on the wrong side of the digital divide. And, with the introduction of SchoolRooms, a new content-driven portal (or electronic gateway), she is well on her way. INFOhio jointly developed SchoolRooms with SirsiDynix, its automation vendor and teams of Ohio school librarians and classroom teachers. When introduced statewide, SchoolRooms will revolutionize the way librarians help students learn, teachers teach, and parents share in their children’s education. And, with that accomplished, Terri will be ready for the next big challenge.


Creating and Managing Digital Video Content

http://createmanagevideo.pbwiki.com

 

Remember when you needed a DVD and a player to view video materials? YouTube, video subscription services, video streaming sites, virtual worlds, and thousands of websites, including wikis and blogs, supply a wealth of video content for consumption. Now that students and teachers are also prolific producers of a variety of digital visual products and are creating and publishing in continuously changing formats and contexts, how can we manage some of this content? What are some of the copyright issues related to the creation and distribution of this content? How could libraries be supporting the creating, accessing, storing and delivering of digital visual content to our students and staff? How can video be distributed in a virtual environment? These questions and others will be explored and discussed.

 

Moderator: Bill Derry

 

Bill Derry is the Coordinator of Information and Technology Literacy in the Westport, CT public schools. A K-5 library media specialist for 6 years in the district and a former supervisor of library media K-12 in New Haven, CT, he works with teachers, library media specialists, technology teachers, parents and administrators to improve teaching and learning. Currently the district is identifying how basic literacy is being redefined in the 21st Century. Two important components of this redefinition involve the "new rules" related to the creation and use of digital visual content and identifying professional development strategies for teachers to "unlearn" and learn new strategies for working in a constructivist environment.

 

Panel:

 

Doug Johnson, Director of Media and Technology

 Doug Johnson has been the Director of Media and Technology for the Mankato (MN) Public Schools since 1991 and has served as an adjunct faculty member of Minnesota State University since 1990. His teaching experience has included work in grades K-12 both here and in Saudi Arabia. He is the author of four books: The Indispensable Librarian, The Indispensable Teacher’s Guide to Computer Skills, Teaching Right from Wrong in the Digital Age and Machines are the Easy Part; People are the Hard Part. His regular columns appear in Library Media Connection and on the Education World website. Doug’s Blue Skunk Blog averages over 50,000 visits a month, and his articles have appeared in over forty books and periodicals. Doug has conducted workshops and given presentations for over 130 organizations throughout the United States as well as in Malaysia, Kenya, Thailand, Germany, Qatar, Canada, Chile, Peru, the UAE and Australia and has held a variety of leadership positions in state and national organizations, including ISTE and AASL.

 

Fair use resource page

 

Nick Glass, Founder & Principal, TeachingBooks.net

Nick Glass is the Founder & Principal of TeachingBooks.net . His circuitous professional route to the founding of TeachingBooks includes six fabulous seasons as an executive in Major League Baseball (the Chicago White Sox, the Office of the Commissioner, and the San Francisco Giants), and an MA in the history of multicultural education. It was while working on his dissertation (at the Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) that he became a bookseller at the independent Pooh Corner bookstore and realized that his calling was in children's books. Nick has spoken at a few dozen educational conferences on integrating 21st century skills and multimedia materials to equalize access to authors and materials about books. He is an active member of the ALA and IRA, and writes monthly columns for both the School Library Journal / TeachingBooks.net Curriculum Connections e-newsletter and for LibrarySparks magazine. He currently is serving on the ALSC 2009 Newbery Medal selection committee.

 

Marianne Malmstrom, K-8 Technology Teacher, Elisabeth Morrow School, Englewood, NJ

 

Marianne Malmstrom has been an educator for over 25 years. Her fascination with using emerging technologies in the classroom led to her current position as a middle school technology teacher at The Elisabeth Morrow School in Englewood, NJ. With her colleagues, she has developed a program rich in the use of multimedia. In Second Life, Marianne is known as \"Knowclue Kidd\" and runs “Project Theater”, a space devoted to professional collaboration with other educators using multimedia in their classrooms. Her interests have expanded to include machinima (video created using MUVEs). Marianne recently coordinated the first machinima festival devoted to highlighting the educational use of this new technology. http://knowclue.com

 

Michelle Begora (Senior Product Manager) - Follett Software

 

Michelle Begora is representing Follett Software Company (www.fsc.follett.com), a market leader in K-12 Education Resource Management solutions.  After spending several years as an IT consultant, Michelle decided she needed to find an opportunity in an industry where she had more of an ability to enact change. For the past 5 years, Michelle has combined her love of technology with her passion for K-12 education.  In her role as Senior Product Manager for the Destiny Resource Management Solution, which includes Destiny Library Manager, she has been instrumental in pioneering new solutions, including a next generation OPAC, Destiny Quest, specifically designed for today's digitally native learner.