Dublin Literacy Conference 2013

I look forward to this Saturday in February each year -- a gathering of colleagues from my district, from surrounding districts, and friends who travel quite a far way.  This year, Laura Komos came from Illinois and Jennifer Orr and Dahlia Constantine came from Virginia -- that is some serious dedication to gathering with like-minded educators to improve what they do each and every day in their classrooms!!!

I had the distinct pleasure of presenting twice this year.  I love how the actual act of planning a presentation and then listening to the people with whom you present, actually make me a more thoughtful literacy teacher.

The first session I presented with my blog partner, Bill.  We both brought wonderful books that came out in 2012 and shared them.  After four or five years of doing this together, we still enjoy this time we get to spend sharing great books of the past year with other educators.  For those of you that couldn't be with us, but would like to see what made our booklist this year, check out this link.

Then, in the second session I presented with Cathy Mere and Deb Frazier -- our session title was Using Evernote to Capture Literacy Learning.  We focused on the power of the Evernote app to collect information about our students' learning journeys through the year.  Cathy mentioned that, even with all we have learned, we have probably only scratched about 20% of Evernote's capabilities.  Below is our slide show - feel free to look at it and also spend some time looking at the Weebly that Cathy has created to hold multiple Evernote resources - it is a treasure trove of information!!

Getting to plan with Bill, Cathy, and Deb was incredible.  In addition, listening to Ralph Fletcher, Louise Borden, and Vicki Vinton has given me much to ponder about the importance of mentor texts in writing, digging deep into topics of choice for research, and being very focused in my reading conferences with students to help them dig deeper with their comprehension.

And finally, the Dublin Literacy Conference gives me an opportunity for face to face time with friends and colleagues from near and far.  That is truly a gift I treasure.