Leatherstocking Conference 2022

Abdul & Rattner open the day with an introduction to the best books (K12) of 2022 and looking forward to the brightest of 2023 couched within participant discussion. Intermittent discussion will focus on providing a platform for collegial conversation and reflection about how our personal reading lives affect our profession.

Session B Title:

Computational Thinking in Your Library: Unplugged

Room:

Adirondack Room

Presenter:

Cathi Brewer, Media Librarian, MOBOCES SLS/Media Services

What do you think of when you hear the term "Computational Thinking"? It's more than working with computers - it's a mindset that can be used to solve problems across all aspects of our lives. Don't get tangled up in wires trying to teach students these critical 21st skills. Explore simple ways to weave the new Computer Science/Digital Fluency standards into your library lessons without using devices. These new standards do not have to add more to your plate. Instead, you can enhance what you already do to support students.

Session C Title:

Using Digital Breakout.edu in Your Library

Room:

Conference Center

Presenter:

Mary Laverty, HS Librarian, Canastota CSD

Want to integrate more team-building, problem-solving, and critical thinking into your school library curriculum? Don’t have the time to use the physical BreakoutEdu boxes? In the last 3 years, Breakout EDU has developed its digital games for learning content tremendously. In this presentation, school librarian Mary Laverty will share how she has successfully integrated the BreakoutEDU digital platform into grades 4-6 library curriculum on a fixed schedule, using library-oriented digital Breakouts (including book-centric ones), supporting students in creating their own Breakouts, and bolstering classroom curriculum review opportunities. Note: this presentation is focused on grades 4-6 but applicable to grades K-12. Breakout Edu requires a teacher license, which is 2-D compliant and available for purchase through your RIC. The activities will be shown using a Google Classroom, but the site can also be used directly.

Session II Descriptions

Session A Title:

Wrapped Around Reading - Integrating Books in the Classroom & Library

Room:

Grand Ballroom

Presenters:

Alicia Abdul & Stacey Rattner

Abdul & Rattner’s second session will expand upon session I’s highlighted books and discussion while providing examples of integrating books in the classroom and library with strategies from elevator speeches to keeping up with publishing and hot-button topics.

Session B Title:

STEAM in the Elementary Library

Audience: PK-6

Room:

Adirondack Room

Presenters:

Ashley Sperber, Kaylyn Rose, Jackie Buzzard, Elementary Librarians, VVS CSD

& Liz Wise, Instructional Tech, Integration Specialist, MORIC Model Schools

Come and check out how to incorporate STEAM challenges and technology into your library lessons! Using Dash, Ozobots, Indi, and Magnet Builders we can show you how we have infused technological delight into our lessons. Dash will help us sort fiction from nonfiction, while the Ozobots will help us retell a story. And Indi and the Magnet Builders will give us the tools to complete fairy tale STEAM challenges. It’s quick and easy to add technology to library lessons and STEAM challenges so let us show you how we did it. This session will be held in the station rotation style so come and join us for some hands-on fun!

Session C Title:

Social Media, the Internet & Our Students

Room:

Conference Center

Presenter:

Michelle Babbie, HS Librarian, Saquoit Valley CSD

Audience: 7-12 Thousands of messages, in what feels like thousands of formats, bombard our students daily. Equipping our young adults with the media literacy & close read skills to critically analyze the meanings and methods behind those messages has become an essential educational task. Join Michelle Babbie, high school librarian for Sauquoit Valley Central School, as she shares some lessons learned from her past year and a little bit's worth of experience co-teaching media literacy skills to a mixed level 9-12th grade media literacy class. There will be a little bit of humor, multiple lesson ideas and examples, as well as some practical tips, tricks and curriculum resources.

Session III Descriptions

Session A Title:

Wrapped Around Reading - Collaboration with students, staff & community

Room:

Grand Ballroom

Presenters:

Alicia Abdul & Stacey Rattner

Abdul & Rattner’s last session will wrap up by highlighting their endeavors with clubs, committees, events, and activities they coordinate to inspire new collaborations and avenues of book discovery with students, staff, and the community.

Session B Title:

Accessing and Using the NYS Digital Heritage Collections, and Traveling Immigration Collection

Room:

Adirondack Room

Presenter:

Ryan Perry, Digital Collections Librarian, CLRC

Connecting students with local primary source materials can be a challenge. Central New York Library Resouces Council (CLRC) works with our regional members to make historical materials available in New York Heritage Digital Collections and NYS Historic Newspapers. We are collaborating on the Consider The Source project with the Archives Partnership Trust, which connects museums, historical societies, and other repositories with educators. This project has made local primary source materials available and enlisted local educators to craft relevant lesson plans. In partnership with other library councils, CLRC has created online and physical exhibits that can be loaned to school libraries. . Our Immigration Exhibit will be circulated in the OHM region from December through February. Finally, school libraries can take advantage of CLRC grants to digitize and make available their yearbooks, school newsletters, and other materials that would be of wider public interest.

Session C Title:

Supporting the NYS Computer Science and Digital Fluency Standards with Children's Literature

Room:

Conference Center

Presenter:

Kristin Spinella, Instructional Tech. Integration Specialist, MORIC Model Schools

It has been said that "books give us some place to go when we have to stay where we are." That is because books have a way of bringing us into the story with the connections we make to both the story and the characters. Those connections can also be powerful when we are looking at ways that we can help to support the NYS Computer Science and Digital Fluency Standards. Together we will look at different literature whose characters and stories help to teach important lessons about digital safety and security.

Keynote Speaker: Eric Gansworth

Eric Gansworth, Sˑha-weñ na-saeˀ, (OnEric Gansworthondaga, Eel Clan) is a writer and visual artist, born and raised at Tuscarora Nation. The author of twelve books, he has been widely published and has had numerous solo and group exhibitions. Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College, he has also been an NEH Distinguished Visiting Professor at Colgate University. His work has received a Printz Honor Award, was Longlisted for the National Book Award and has received an American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award, PEN Oakland Award and American Book Award. Apple (Skin to the Core) was chosen for Time Magazine’s 10 Best YA and Children’s Books for 2020. Gansworth’s work has been also supported by the Library of Congress, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Arne Nixon Center, the Saltonstall and Lannan Foundations and the Seaside Institute.

Featured Presenters

Alica Abdul

Alicia Abdul is a high school librarian in Albany, NY. She shares her reading (and dresses) on Instagram @ReadersBeAdvised and blogs at readersbeadvised.wordpress.com. She's served or chaired on several YALSA book committees, presents at local, state, and national conferences on books, programs, and graphic novels, and recently became an adjunct for two graduate programs on young adult literature.

Stacey Rattner

Stacey Rattner is the K-6 “leaping librarian” at Castleton Elementary School. She is active on social media where you can always find a picture or two of Stacey jumping on Twitter @staceybethr and @C_ESLibrary and her blog librarianleaps.blogspot.com. Since September 2020, Stacey has been the co-host of the popular YouTube show, “Author Fan Face-off” with author Steve Sheinkin.

Their Sessions

Session I: Abdul & Rattner open the day with an introduction to the best books (K12) of 2022 and looking forward to the brightest of 2023 couched within participant discussion. Intermittent discussion will focus on providing a platform for collegial conversation and reflection about how our personal reading lives affect our profession.

Session II: Abdul & Rattner’s second session will expand upon session I’s highlighted books and discussion while providing examples of integrating books in the classroom and library with strategies from elevator speeches to keeping up with publishing and hot-button topics.

Session III: Abdul & Rattner’s last session will wrap up by highlighting their endeavors with clubs, committees, events, and activities they coordinate to inspire new collaborations and avenues of book discovery with students, staff, and the community.

Delta Hotels by Marriott Utica

200 Genesee St, Utica, NY 13502

Get Directions

For hotel rooms at Delta Hotel, please use this link to get a special rate. The rate expires on October 8, 2022.

Registration Information

All attendees must register on MLP before October 13, 2022.

The registration fee of $75 is now CoSerable. It includes access to all sessions, continental breakfast, and lunch. If your district would like to CoSer the cost of the conference, please fill out the highlighted portions of the quote below. Have your business official or superintendent sign the quote and then we can move forward with an adjustment to service. Fill out the highlighted sections of this quote. Send this completed and signed quote to the address below. You can also pay via a check made out to OHM BOCES.

Please send all registration payment information to:

OHM BOCES c/o School Library System

502 Court St. 3rd Floor

Utica, NY 13502

Vendor inquires

Please contact Sue Leblanc at sleblanc@moboces.org.

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