TCEA in Austin, TX

We absolutely love going to TCEA in Austin every year.  For the past 7 years, Blanca, Karen, and I have been lucky enough to present at this fine event.  A very wise librarian, Suanne Johnson, once told us that it was our duty to present and share what we do with others.  The first time we presented it was with Suanne, and we talked about how we ran centers in our elementary libraries; that seems like a lifetime ago.  Suanne is now retired and has move away, but I can still hear her voice in my head saying, "you need to present" when that email comes to submit presentations for the next year.  To be honest, we dropped the ball last year and missed the deadline.  Thank goodness someone from the Library Academy at TCEA contacted us.  The district no longer pays for our accommodations if we do present, but we believe it is worth the money from our own budget to go.

My favorite presenter at TCEA is Tammy Worcester.  She is fabulous!  If you haven't checked her out before, you are missing out.  To take a look at her page, click here: Tammy's Website. She is one techno-savvy lady.  Here is a list of all her presentations at TCEA this year: TCEA 2013.  We went to her 3 hour session, "Tammy's Favorite Web Tools," and loved every minute of it.  We also went to her presentation on Evernote, but I will admit she lost me when she started encrypting quizzes for students to take.  That was way beyond my comfort level!  Blanca also went to one called "Tech Tools for Administrators," and she came back with lots of ideas.  I put a lot of the tools we liked from TCEA on my Pinterest board: "Our Favorite Digital Tools."

Now for our presentation...Last year was the first year we presented for the Library Academy.  We presented our Pirate Freshman Orientation dressed in full costume.  (Here is a link to our presentation last year, http://duncanvillehs.libguides.com/epirate ) We focused on the technology we used, like QR codes, the ActivExpression clickers, Survey Monkey, and Animoto.  We presented in front of a group of about 20.  So in preparing for this year, we estimated for 40 librarians, thinking we would be bringing home some of the buttons and postcards we made to give out as "freebies." 

Well, we were WRONG!!!  Our presentation was up-sized to a ballroom 15 minutes before we began, and I almost hyperventilated when the placed filled up.  It was the first time in 7 years that I was actually nervous.  We had to scatter the postcards 2 to a table and asked the librarians to share.  We gave out buttons to those who asked questions during and after our presentation. That was not our original intention, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances.  

Here are a couple of pics of us presenting...

And here we were after it was over...

So we'd like to thank everyone who showed up for our presentation.  We had a great time!  In case you want to take a peak, here is the link to our presentation... http://duncanvillehs.libguides.com/tcea2013

See you next time!