Professionalism+&+Personal+Growth

I strive to be an active contributor to the professional learning environment at Highland and to the larger school library profession. I spend a significant amount of time trying to stay current in a field that is constantly changing. I do this by being an active member of the profession both through participating in professional organizations and through monitoring of the information landscape including new media (blogs, twitter, etc) and more traditional print publications. In August, I graduated from University of North Texas with my Ph.D. in Information Science and was inducted into Beta Phi Mu, the International Library and Information Science Honor Society.

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**District Involvement**

 * Technology Committee
 * Participate in meetings and projects of the district Learning Center Directors
 * Joined Highland's School Improvement Committee

**Professional Involvement**
I was elected to the Board of ISLMA (Illinois School Library Media Association) in July 2010 for a two year term.

Member of a task force to align ISAIL (Illinois Standards Aligned Instruction for Libraries) with the Common Core Standards.

I participated in presentations at the annual conferences for ISLMA and ICE (Illinois Computing Educators). At the ISLMA Conference, I presented along with the other District #70 Learning Center Directors on our Reality Rocks initiative to promote the recreational reading of nonfiction in the schools. A wiki was created with our presentation.

I was particularly proud of the presentation I put together for the ICE Conference. I had the idea to try an [|Ignite] format to get many mini-presentations within the same session. The Ignite format is structured so that each presenter has 5 minutes to speak - using a presentation format of 20 slides where speakers get to use 15 seconds per slide. I put together a group of really good, tech-embracing librarians to present. Our overarching topic was "Enhancing 21st Century Learning in the School Library". We had a packed room.

My presentation slides: media type="custom" key="8501454" The lineup of speakers:

I've been asked to be part of a panel on Virtual Participation and School Libraries at the American Library Associations Annual Conference this summer.

**Mentoring**
Student teacher from University of Illinois Student intern from Dominican University Resumed teaching classes as an adjunct as part of Dominican University's Graduate School of Library and Information Science.
 * Spring semester I taught LIS 722 - Library Materials for Young Adults
 * Summer I semester I will teach LIS 773 - Administration of School Libraries

**Networking**
Active in professional organizations Active in various networking groups, both virtual and face-to-face