This fall, BELS has focused substantial efforts on sharing with the education community. We have been given opportunities to reach fellow librarians, administrators, teachers, and technology staff at three different conferences.

In early November, Media specialist Mr. Richter of the Westwood Regional School District presented “Research Activities and Technology in Your Library Media Program” at the New Jersey Education Association’s annual statewide conference in Atlantic City. Both teachers and librarians learned step by step instructional activities that can be used to integrate technology into teaching in a library media program. Peter’s many ideas have been implemented successfully in the Westwood Media Center (and are often featured in our BELS Spotlights).

At the New Jersey Association for School Librarians (NJASL) Fall Conference, Abigail, together with Doug Baldwin from New Brunswick Public Library, presented the Alien Invasion Design Challenge. This workshop was developed last year in preparation for NJMakersDay and was first piloted in a BELS member training session. After the challenge went over so well in various BELS libraries, BELS ‘took the show on the road’ and trained new librarians on how to implement this MakerSpace program in their media centers as well. Feedback from the workshop was excellent, and attendees left the session with everything they needed to replicate this session with their students- whether they have a fully loaded MakerSpace already or are just getting their feet wet in the Making movement.

Coming up this January, Krista Welz, from North Bergen HS and a certified Google Trainer, will be presenting at New Jersey Educational Computing Cooperative (NJECC)’s winter conference. Her topic “Integrating Google Classroom into Common Core Websites” will explore Common Core websites in detail and show teachers how to fully integrate functions like assessments, study guides, and exercises using google Classroom.

We hope to have more opportunities to spread library media center goodness with educators throughout the state, and thank all our participants for making these sessions so successful!