Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

I am still trying to process the entire NECC 2008 experience, though it is difficult. This year was the year of the C’s if someone had to ask me–there were many buzzwords that began with C, and not just those from the theme:

Connect

Convene

CoLearn

Collaborate

Create

Some highlights:

The keyring that Kevin Honeycutt brought was a big hit. Teachers come to short trainings (Fifteen minutes?) and at end of sessions, receive a plastic laminated tag for their keyring. The front has the 2.0 tool name on it (i.e. Twitter, Plurk, Flickr, etc.) and the back has the URL and sometimes the name/contact of a helpful person.

Here we are –rocks stars for the moment right after our session at necc, but in all likelihood more like glowing in the shadow of Joyce Valenza, certified teacher librarian rock star–the rest of us, back up singers/players who may eventually grow into our own. (Picture bottom row l-r:Carolyn Foote, Joyce Valenza, Diane Cordell, Judy O’Connell, top row, l-r: Anita Beaman, me.) Where is Joyce’s badge? She such a known entity here at NECC, none is really needed.

My dinner mates (minus Scott McLeod, who is taking the picture) form Tuesday PM. We went to Rosario’s on South Alamo, and it is true I’m afraid. Doug Johnson, while in all his greatness in libraryland, is a self professed curmudgeon! (Pictured l-r: Miguel Ghulin, Ann Johnson, aka LWW, Wes Fryer, Dough Johnson, me)

EBC was fun–not the same as 2007, but I didn’t expect it to be. I expected more participants, and i was not disappointed. Conspicuously absent for me–> John Pederson.

Still trying to figure it all out. Can anyone else think of the C words that were buzzing?