Presenters and Sessions

Listed in alphabetical order

Sandra Amoore, Alligator Creek State School: Sandra has been a teacher and teacher-librarian employed by Education Queensland for 26 years and has a great interest in children's literature having read almost everyday to all age groups. Her professional passion is the promotion of literacy through inspiring and challenging texts.

Session title: Picture books are for everyone When adults think of picture books we envisage children’s literature. But this is not the only perspective in the 21st century. Picture books have been a cultural tradition where adults have pre-existing expectations. Conventionally they are large, colourful, 32 pages of easy to read bedtime stories that end ‘happily ever after’ produced exclusively for children. Must picture books finish in childhood? Could their audience be for adolescents, parents and senior citizens too? Imagination, empathy and critical thinking does not stop once we reach eighteen, especially in the present climate where schools are educating children to be lifelong learners. Through practical examples using recent picture books issues facing society are highlighted. Picture books present fertile texts for applying critical thinking skills so important in today’s society, while still engaging the heart, emotions and intellect of the author, illustrator and reader.

Anthony Aspiridis, EBSO Publishing: Anthony’s role with EBSCO Publishing involves him working with schools to incorporate electronic research resources into school libraries. With a degree in Multimedia, he has a thorough understanding of interface design, development of online content and the role technology can play in research. He has seen online learning and research evolve to a stage where specialist resources have become standard fare for progressive libraries.

Session title: Refining Research with the Australia/NZ Reference Centre – Share in the possibilities this resource can bring to schools – Special Interest Group This workshop will comprise a discussion and interactive demonstration. Against the background of school libraries, the workshop will focus on the role of online resources for students, and the trends that are driving the development of school online databases, in particular the Australia/NZ Reference Centre. We will discuss the importance of full-text Australian content in a global online environment, locating and selecting content that is relevant to students and the need for resources to be familiar to Internet users. By demonstrating usage, we can see the advantages a dedicated research database has in comparison to the Internet, and the ease of locating timely content from a broad range of content sources. Our workshop will review the emergence of tools to assist both teacher-librarians and students to incorporate content into school library WebPages.

Liz Blumson and Noeleen Fleming, University of Qld Cybrary: From an English and Drama teaching background, Liz has worked as a teacher-librarian for the last seventeen years. She was a Senior Project Officer with Education Queensland responsible for setting up libraries in new schools, joining the UQL Cyberschool team at the beginning of 2000.
Noeleen has been part of the UQL Cyberschool team since August 2001. She has had many years experience in teaching English and History and has worked as a teacher-librarian for 20 years in independent and state secondary schools.

Session title: UQL Cyberschool: Bringing online electronic resources to your school- The UQL Cyberschool (www.cybrary.uq.edu.au/schools), an outreach programme from the University of Queensland Cybrary, works with schools and database vendors to provide training, technical support and efficient, cost-effective access to full-text electronic databases such as Australia and New Zealand Reference Centre (s/a workshop presented by Anthony Aspiridis), Electric Library Australasia and Expanded Academic ASAP, all of which contain full-text articles from newspapers and periodicals, together with a range of other subject-based databases. The UQL Cyberschool website also provides access to selected quality web sites organized by the eight national curriculum areas for schools. There are links to the University of Queensland Cybrary catalogue and the Virtual Reference Collection which contains further links to freely available government legislation, statistics, dictionaries and encyclopedias, atlases, information about educational institutions, and business and employment directories. Trends in information service delivery and information technology challenges are addressed in an update session and a major seminar each year.

Karen Bonanno, Karen Bonanno & Associates: Karen Bonanno is the Executive Officer for the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) and the Managing Director of Karen Bonanno & Associates. Karen’s professional interests include information literacy, ICT integration, knowledge management, and personal development. She was the Project Officer for the ASLA professional development CD-ROM, Teaching Information Skills, ASLA EdNA Train-the-trainer manual and the ASLA video, Steps to success: information literacy. Karen was the President of the School Library Association of Queensland for four years, commencing in 1992, and the President of the Australian School Library Association from 1996 to 1998. In 2001 she received a national award, the ASLA Citation Award, in recognition of her contribution to the teacher-librarianship profession in Australia. Karen has written a number of journal articles, book chapters and papers, and presented at numerous local, national and international conferences. She co-edited a book, with James Henri, The information literate school community: best practice, in 1999.

Session title 1: ASLA research update: impact of school libraries on student achievement In November 2002 the Australian School Library Association Inc (ASLA) commissioned the Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER) to conduct a research review on the impact of school libraries on student achievement. This review was completed in 2003, officially launched in Canberra in September 2003, and presented to the teacher-librarianship and education community. In November 2003, ASLA began collaborative discussions with significant educational and industry stakeholders to further the research agenda of ASLA, and to consider a joint application for national research funds to address the need for Australian based research projects on the impact of school libraries on student achievement. The foci of Australian based research includes the professional status, role and purpose of teacher librarians, particularly in the areas of leadership, instruction and collaboration; the difference teacher librarians make to student information literacy skills, and the up skilling of school-based practitioners to gather evidence-based research of ‘best’ practice. Best practice will be viewed as those practices that have produced outstanding results in another situation and that could be adapted to a similar situation. In addition, ASLA is keen to capture and maintain quantitative data on staffing of school libraries and the logistics of operating and managing a school library.

Session title 2: Chief Knowledge Officer: position vacant – Knowledge Management (KM) is dependent on people, process, and ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ technology as an enabler to generate and manage knowledge of a learning community. ‘Soft’ technology is the social systems and human networks that create, refine and generate new knowledge, whilst ‘hard’ technology is the technology-based systems and tools used to capture, store and disseminate knowledge. KM is a process of ‘learning to know what you know’ so that this knowingness can be used creatively and productively for faster and better innovation Knowledge creation is a dynamic process involving the synergy of human minds interacting with tacit and explicit knowledge within a given context.

Jason Clarke, Minds at Work: Jason Clarke - Mindsworker - skipped university, bought some long pants and landed a job with the Victorian State Opera. He resigned three years later from his position as Senior Stage Manager after again being overlooked for the role of Carmen. Taking what he had learnt about stagecraft, Jason entered corporate communications producing films, exhibitions, multimedia and live events for clients including Ford, Kodak and Microsoft. A swag of local and international awards soon adorned the Clarke Trophy Room. A five-year freelance spree saw Jason grow into a creative and strategic thinker for Australia Post, Telstra and BHP among others. During this time he accepted an invitation to become the Creative Director of what was then Australia;s largest multi-media production network, AAV Australia. Jason took AAV to new directions in environmental interpretation and science education, providing the creative vision for some of Australia's most successful education and tourism projects including: the Philip Island Nature Reserve, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Science Centre (Hobart) and the Melbourne Aquarium. Today, Jason is the founding father of the Minds at Work equation.. Jason can be heard on ABC 774 Melbourne each Monday when he joins breakfast host Red Symons for an on air battle of wits. He also runs the Creativity and Innovation stream inside the MBA at the Mt Eliza Business School. He is married, has one son and lives in Melbourne. He has abandoned any operatic aspirations.

Session title: From Ideal to Real: Getting is done, getting it right! – You’ve got a dream, a picture of a better future. Maybe it’s vague, but hey, it’s a start. If you’re going to make it a reality you’re gonna need some help. You might already have half an idea of who could help with what. Now all you have to do is find some way of getting all the different egos and mindsets to work together. How will the dreamers get along with the bean counters? Will the process-minded people clash with the big-picture people … or will politics hijack the entire project? This workshop reveals how to orchestrate very different talents and agendas to turn the Ideal into the Real.

Jennifer Cram and Val Shine, Education Queensland: Jennifer is Manager, Education Queensland Library Services and a former National President of ALIA. Jenny has experience in managing school, corporate and public libraries and is widely published on a range of aspects of library service design and management. Val is Principal Librarian, Corporate Library & Information Services, Education Queensland. She has experience in managing TAFE and Corporate Libraries. Both are qualified teachers with classroom experience in Australia and overseas.

Session title: Performance measurement as promotion: demonstrating benefit to your significant others – Traditionally, school libraries, in common with other libraries, have judged their effectiveness on flows, which are more a measure of workload than of library effectiveness. Libraries have to come to terms with the idea that converting knowledge to value might require that the amount and speed of the information that flows out of the library be reduced in order to provide users with quality “just for you” services. 21st century teacher-librarians need to be able to define and demonstrate value in the context of their libraries and demonstrate return on investment in terms of academic outcomes. A conceptual framework for value measurement is proposed, the deficiencies of current performance measurement practice are discussed, in particular, the tendency to gather information about process and to report in a way which obscures the value of the library to the parent organisation. A case study on designing, modifying and using a transaction based multi-faceted performance measurement mechanism is described. The rarity of linking personal performance evaluation to organisational performance is discussed and methods of doing so are proposed.

Amanda Credaro, DET (NSW): Amanda has been a geologist, veterinary nurse, photojournalist, book reviewer and science teacher. She is a practicing teacher-librarian with the NSW DET, editor of Warrior Librarian Weekly, and the author of Biblia’s Guide to Warrior Librarianship. She has worked in secondary, primary and tertiary libraries as well as at the corporate level of education. Her particular areas of interest are in affective domain issues for school library staff, advocacy for school libraries, and workplace social justice.

Session title: Drawing blue bananas: stereotypes, pigeon-holes and maximizing opportunities in the school library – This will be a participative experience, catering especially to teacher-librarians who may be experiencing (or anticipating) those specific challenges in operating and/or managing a school library that can occur due to the divergent expectations of different sectors of, and individuals within, the school community and beyond.

Michael Hough, University of Wollongong: Michael holds joint Professorial Fellow Appointments – as a Professor of Management: in the Graduate School of Business and Professional Education; and as a Professor of Educational Leadership in the Faculty of Education – both at the University of Wollongong, NSW Australia

His main interests are in Futurism and the new Knowledge Technologies; Strategic Thinking, Development of Organisations; Quality Management and its applications to all aspects of the service sector; and in the application of new technologies (especially Information and Communication Technologies) to Organisational practices.

Session title 1: Strategic thinking for school librarians – The initial workshop will apply the issues of the keynote address by teaching some basic strategic thinking tools- Scenario Thinking, / P.E.S.T. analyses / What-If Thinking. These tools will be used to enable participants to explore in more detail the likely future environments for school libraries, and to discuss some positive and negative aspects of futures thinking and its results. The workshop will include examples of how new technologies could affect schools and their libraries

Session title 2: Acting strategically: planning a preferred future for a school library - This workshop will build on both the keynote address and the initial workshop and develop more detailed thinking and planning tools. The concept of a ‘Preferred Future’ will be introduced, and additional strategic planning techniques explained and illustrated, including school scenarios, back casting and S.W.O.T. analyses, and these techniques will be used to assist participants in developing a preferred future statement for a school library. The workshop will emphasis a ‘Train the Trainer’ approach by providing examples of strategic tool workshops that participants could adapt for their own future use.

Chris Kahl, Enoggera State School: Chris is currently working in Brisbane as a classroom teacher. In the past, Education Queensland has employed her as a classroom teacher, teacher-librarian, resource and curriculum consultant, Key Teacher for the Year 2 Net and the Arts. Although she is a classroom teacher, she has continued her involvement with SLAQ.

Session title: The science of literature–or what do Brer Rabbit and static electricity have in common? – This workshop will discuss how the non - narrative forms of writing can be used to support narrative genre. Participants will work with different narrative texts (folktales, myths, legends, fairytales, modern fiction) and find out where and how scientific principles can be used to complement story, the role of the teacher-librarian in planning these activities and take away a bank of ideas to help students comprehend the language of science

Carolyn Keighley, Lowood State School: Carolyn has been the teacher-librarian at Lowood State School and a member of the Ipswich teacher-librarian network since 1998. Once a week she wears another hat, that of learning mentor for West Moreton district, working with teachers and school staff to build skills to support the ICTs for learning initiative and promote effective use of the Learning Place in teaching and learning. As part of this initiative, she has been heavily involved in online communication. This led to the establishment of an Online Literature Festival hosting online chat with authors and illustrators as part of the Ipswich Children's Literature Festival 2003.

Session title: Running online author chats and forums – Is your school too remote to get an author or illustrator to visit? Do you want to bring an author/illustrator to meet your children but you simply do not have the funds to fly someone over and then accommodate them overnight, plus pay for their daily fees. Well there is an alternative….. Meet them online. In this presentation I will be showing the steps I took to organise and facilitate an Online Literature Festival where children from across Australia were able to meet and interact with their favourite authors and illustrators. You can run a festival yourself after this session, or simply be able to organise a one chat event with your school or a particular class. The session will cover: Setting up a series of project rooms within the Learning Place, locating authors and illustrators to participate, communications used with author/illustrators, school participants, teachers and moderators, event promotion. Attendees at the session will all receive a CD of templates and guides to help support them in creating online events with authors and illustrators.

Marjorie Kirkland and Mary-Elizabeth Nash, Aquinas College: Marj is presently teacher-librarian at Aquinas College on the Gold Coast. Originally a teacher of English, she worked briefly as a librarian in the State Library of Queensland before returning to work in education. Marj has enjoyed many roles in schools: teacher, academic and pastoral coordinator, ATSI tutor and yearbook editor. She is passionate about extending students’ worlds through reading and literacy, and has been known to “sell” books to teenagers by whatever devious means she can think of! Mary is the Assistant to the Principal, Administration, at Aquinas College. Her previous roles within the school have been focused on students in the middle years of learning. Mary’s passion is identifying and meeting the needs of young adolescents within the context of educational institutions.

Session title: Boys talking books – Literature Circles at work in the high school - Aquinas College is a Catholic co-educational high school situated on the Gold Coast. In recent years, the literacy levels of our incoming male year 8 students has been of concern. Through pre-testing of year 8 students on entry to the college, learning difficulties are identified. Ascertained students receive individualised learning support, however other students who do not fall into this category may also benefit from intervention and extra encouragement. Research has shown that the amount of reading done has a major correlation to literacy levels. During the past few years, many and varied attempts have been made to improve the reading culture of our school. Yet there are still some students who are not keen to read, indicating a need for further literacy consolidation programs, especially within the Middle School male population. This workshop addresses the process Aquinas College has used to implement literature circles within their reading program. It was intended that the students’ attitude to reading, their general literacy, vocabulary and comprehension abilities were expected to improve, as well as their skills at working in groups.

Andrew Knott, Macrossans Lawyers: Andrew has developed extensive knowledge and experience in education law, employment and workplace relations, administrative law, and criminal matters arising from these specialist areas of practice. He is nationally recognised as an authority in education law and in Queensland on public sector employment law and laws relating to the dairy industry. He is co-author or co-editor of three books on educational law, and regularly lectures and publishes on education and employment law. Andrew was admitted on 17 December 1970. He is a partner at Macrossans Lawyers. His principal areas of practice are: Employment & Workplace Relations; Education; Dairying; Administrative Crime and Regulatory offences.

Session title: School libraries and how the law impacts on their daily operation – Andrew will address various topics, particularly in relation to the issues of employment, duty of care and the rights of the casual worker.

Kristen Lewis, Megan Daley and Trisha Buckley, West Moreton Anglican College (WMAC): Kristen Lewis graduated as a teacher-librarian at QUT in 1994, and since gone on to complete her Masters in Education in Children's Literature. She has been employed as a full-time teacher-librarian at WMAC for 6 years, and is responsible for the Middle/Senior Library. Megan Daley has been employed as a full-time teacher-librarian for 3 years at WMAC since graduating as the youngest teacher-librarian in Qld. (QUT) in 2000. She is responsible for the Junior Library. Patricia Buckley was employed at the beginning of 2003 to work in both libraries. She graduated in 2002 (QUT).

Session title: From author to festival: don’t dream it, do it – Promoting reading to students is rewarding, however, it can also be frustrating. In our presentation, we examine a range of programs and activities available to teacher-librarians, and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. We take a step-by-step approach through our most successful endeavors, from author and illustrator visits through to hosting literature festivals. Participants will be provided with a practical handout, which will be of assistance when planning literature based activities.

Matt Ottley, Author/Illustrator was born in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, where he spent the first eleven and a half years of his life. After almost failing high school in Sydney, he worked as a jackeroo on cattle stations in Queensland, before returning to Sydney to study fine arts and music. He is now one of Australia's most popular children's author/illustrators, and has been published in several different languages around the world.

Session title: Inspiration and the self-addressed envelope: drawing, writing and the creation of a picture book – The title of Matt’s workshop is self-explanatory and a must for Ottley fans

Judith Peacock and Noel Meyers, Queensland University of Technology: Judith is the Information Literacy Coordinator at QUT. Her role entails the provision of advice and recommendations on policies and procedures for the development of information literacy programs, products and services in the University. She works collaboratively with faculty and library teaching staff on the integration, delivery and evaluation of information literacy competencies within the curricula and is responsible for the development, implementation and management of the library’s own information literacy programs and initiatives. Her professional interests focus upon the nexus between information literacy and quality teaching, learning and assessment practice and the changing role of the academic librarian in higher education. Judith is also a qualified teacher.

Noel is a Lecturer in the QUT School of Natural Resource Sciences where he teaches a number of courses in ecology and plant biology. Within the Faculty of Science, Noel, Judy Peacock and Duncan Nulty direct the ‘Enhancing the development of information literacy in science’ project. Noel also directs, with Karen Whelan, the project ‘Enhancing the transition of first year science students’. He is also a member of the Faculty of Science's ‘Teaching and learning committee’.

Session title: Librarians and academics: working together to embed information literacy into student learning in science – In this case study, Noel and Judith will report on how library and academic staff in the Faculty of Science at QUT are working together to embed information literacy into the fabric of, and within the context of, undergraduate science units. This involves both development of IL skills and the assessment of those skills within the context of individual courses. They will report on the importance of the librarian-academic partnership, which has contributed to successful learning outcomes for students.

Chris Perry, Deakin University: Dr Chris Perry lectures at Deakin University in Teacher Education. She combines school based consultancies with lecturing in the area of children's growth and development especially as it relates to the development of student's thinking and learning. A special focus of her research and consultancy is on the development of learners problem-solving strategies and learning style.

Chris has been involved in, and has been Project Director of, a variety of school-based partnership programs that have focused on curriculum development, teacher renewal and change management.

She is the author of Thinking it through - activities to develop good thinking skills and co-author of Researching it through: activities for developing skills in defining, locating and presenting information both published by Oxford University Press. A recent publication is Learning in style - activities to recognise, accommodate and strengthen students' styles of learning published by Hawker Brownlow.

Session title: Thinking and learning about a thinking curriculum – It is not possible for teachers to provide the students in their charge with all the information they need to be successful learners. Good teachers must support students in the process of thinking, in knowing when they understand, when they need to know more and how to go about finding out what they need to know. Students need to be metacognitive - to be able to think about their thinking.

Many schools now have begun to include 'thinking' in their curricula and are teaching 'thinking skills'. Good schools are developing a school-wide approach that is based on a range of teaching and learning strategies that aim to develop and foster learning that is engaging, relevant and purposeful.

This workshop will work through ideas and activities that would allow the teacher/teacher-librarian torecognise and audit a THINKING CURRICULUM.

Marilyn Roberts, HeartWise Counsel: Marilyn is a storytherapist, storyteller and story coach. She has worked as a nurse’s aide, a tour guide, a teacher, a mother and is a qualified librarian, yoga teacher and art therapist. For the past four years Marilyn has been working as a professional storyteller presenting programs to community groups, churches, aged care facilities, hospitals, schools and preschools using story, poetry song and the arts as a healing tool. Participants choosing this session are advised to wear comfortable clothing!!!! A carpeted floor space has been booked.

Session title: Fleshing out the bones: how to weave a good story – Whilst adults can change their circumstances; children cannot. Children are powerless, and in difficult circumstances they are the victim of every sorrow and mischance and rage around them, for children feel all these things but are without any of the ability that adults have to change them. (Mary Oliver) Why should I tell stories? How do I tell a story well? What stories do I tell and when do I tell? These are just some of the questions we explore in this workshop along with a personal investigation into the moral heritage we pass on to our clients in storytelling sessions either explicitly or implicitly. In this very experiential workshop we will start with an examination of our own values to appreciate the role story played in the development of our values as we consider an extremely well known old favourite, Little Red Cap, or as it is more commonly known Little Red Riding Hood, in an entirely new light. But how do I tell a good story? Each of us tells stories everyday using expression and gesture in our own unique way, we even can recall at least the bare bones of stories we have heard throughout our lives. These are the talents and stories we will work with to develop a repertoire designed to inspire, instruct and entertain. We will look at ways of fleshing out these bones to personalize and enliven a story as well as investigating how to source and develop new stories to suit individual audiences.

Mary-Ann Salisbury, Runcorn State High School and Denise Tarlinton, Kurwongbah State School: Mary-Ann is a teacher-librarian at Runcorn State High School in Brisbane. Since 1974 she has worked in a number of Queensland schools promoting resource based teaching and learning and information literacy. She is currently President of ASLA and past President of SLAQ. She has conducted in-service and professional development seminars throughout Queensland and is passionate about the significant contribution that members of her profession make to education in Australia. Denise is a teacher-librarian/thinking skills enrichment teacher at Kurwongbah State School, a multi-age P-7 school in Queensland. She lectures part time in Graduate Diploma in Education (Teacher Librarianship) course through QUT. She is currently Vice-president of SLAQ Murrumba subcommittee.

Session title: Thinking through the things you do – creating a thinking culture- This is a 2 hour workshop. Participants will attend both sessions There are a number of models and a variety of names for the information skills process or the research process. Regardless of the model that is our favourite or which works best for our school, college or education community, they are all based on a similar concept – that there is a model for the process of undertaking a research/inquiry task or assignment. The model provides a structure to guide the process and an awareness of what is needed to complete the task. Many of the models we have for the information process are represented as linear. We need to have included in our information process models, explicit language about the thinking skills that are often inherent in the process. Many research tasks or assignments do not challenge the student to undertake higher order thinking. Assignments should be worded to include higher-order thinking so that students are required to participate in meaningful tasks, but using the language of higher order thinking does not guarantee that the student will know to do the thinking. If we want students to ‘do’ the thinking then we as teachers need to teach them the processes for thinking Students need to develop a repertoire of thinking skills during their school life so they can dip into the bucket of thinking and decide on and use the most appropriate thinking processes for situations or task they encounter. Knowing what type of thinking is needed for any given situation or task is a lifelong learning skill in itself. (A repertoire of thinking skills). As teachers we need a model that not only informs us about the higher-order thinking skills but that gives us the pedagogy to teach them and allows us to focus on information literacy skills at the same time.

The model that we have adopted is the Dimensions of Learning framework (DOL). If we believe in thinking as content we need to teach, then we need the pedagogy to effectively teach this content. The Dimensions of Learning framework provides us with the pedagogy to teach thinking skills to students. DOL encourages higher order thinking; a problem based curriculum; a broad range of meaningful and progressive teaching styles; interdisciplinary coherence and pedagogical reform.

Janine Schmidt, University of Queensland: Janine is University Librarian at the University of Queensland. She took up this post 10 years ago and is responsible for a network of 13 branch libraries located at the three campuses of the University - St Lucia, Gatton and Ipswich - and in the teaching hospitals. Also included within the responsibilities of the University Librarian are the University Archives and e-zones providing over 1300 computers and an AskIT computer training and help service for all students. She has been responsible for badging the library as a Cybrary, denoting the combination of physical space and cyberspace in its facilities and service provision. All services and facilities design are focused on the Library’s clients. Marketing strategies have been adopted for new products and services. UQL Cyberschool has been a success story with 138 schools in Queensland now using the service. Janine is also involved in Board membership of one of Brisbane’s secondary schools.

Session title: Back to the future: expanding one’s personal toolkit – In preparing for the future, each of us must build on our ASK (attitudes, skills, knowledge). Networking is an important strategy for improving our skills and knowledge and advancing our personal and professional capacities. Networking tips and tricks will be expounded.

Chris Skrzeczynski, Our Lady of the Rosary School, Kenmore: Chris describes herself as an evolving teacher-librarian, more specifically defined as a life-long learner. She says that she fell into teacher-librarianship by fortuitous accident, but had no perception of the lengths to which this role would take her. The further she goes, the further moves the horizon. She came from the world of early childhood to the world of ICTs which she believes drives the information forum of the present and the future.

Session title: Connecting with the curriculum – Chris will share her school’s journey in the area of Outcomes Based Education, explaining her role in the restructuring of the curriculum.

Kerrie Smith, EdNA Online: Kerrie Smith is well known to teacher-librarians through her active participation in various national email lists. Kerrie is the Schools Information Officer for EdNA Online. In that role she produces the EdNA-for-schools newsletter and the Early Childhood News, as well theme pages and news headlines.

Session title 1: An update of EdNA Online's tools and services – The purpose of this session is to give an overview of the free tools and services available to teacher librarians through EdNA Online. This will be a hands-on session and there will be time for participants to explore the EdNA website for themselves.

Session title 2: Embedding services and resources from EdNA Online into your website - This hands-on workshop will demonstrate for participants the tools that EdNA Online provides that can be embedded in your website. It is envisaged the participants will be teacher-librarians or website managers. Participants will learn about the EDNA federated search, RSS feeds, search strings and more.

Mark Snartt, Queensland Studies Authority: Mark manages the development, approval and accreditation of all syllabuses and guidelines from preschool to year 12. He was formerly the Assistant Director (Curriculum Development) with the Queensland School Curriculum Council. He managed the development of the Years 1 to 10 Science and Technology Key Learning Areas; the position papers on the cross-curricular priorities of numeracy and a futures perspective; and the subject area syllabuses and guidelines for Home Economics, Industrial Technology and Design, Agriculture, Business Education, and Information and Communication Technology.

Session title: The QSA and contemporary curriculum issues – The Queensland Studies Authority (QSA) is responsible, amongst other things, for syllabuses and testing P to 12. Much of the Queensland government education reform agenda has been carried by the QSA. The QSA also responds to national educational developments. Mark's workshop will include updates on the most recent state and national developments.

Margaret Spillman, Mackay West State School and Claire Grandcourt , Mackay City Council Library Service: Margaret is currently the teacher-librarian at Mackay West State School. This is a school with an enrolment of 800 students, spread across two campuses. While interested in all areas of literacy, boys and literacy is of particular interest. In 2000, she was the co-presenter of a Boys and literacy project which won an inaugural Showcase Excellence Award, and is now exploring the potential of productive partnerships between public and school libraries. Improved student learning outcomes are the common denominator of all the projects Margaret has been involved with. Claire has been the Young People's Services Librarian with the Mackay City Council Library Service since 1999. Her role is to develop, co-ordinate and promote library services, resources and collections to young people aged 0 to 18 years in the Mackay community. Claire loves the challenge of motivating young people to use libraries to meet both their educational and recreational needs and aims to provide a space young people can call their own, creating a sense of ownership over the library, its services and collections.

Session title: Productive partnerships: public & school libraries promoting lifelong learning– The joint presentation of Productive partnerships - public and school libraries promoting lifelong learning clearly supports the SLAQ 2004 conference theme of Flagging the Future. The productive partnership, which is developing between Mackay City Council Library Services and Mackay West State School, flags the innovative approach which the two groups have towards delivering improved lifelong learning skills.

Jenny Stubbs and Carolyn Keighley: Jenny is a teacher-librarian servicing 15 small schools in the West Moreton District, is newsletter editor and web manger for the Children’s Book Council of Australia, coordinator of the Book Week publication produced by the Ipswich district teacher-librarian network, coordinator of the Ipswich Festival of Children’s Literature, and a committee member of the School Library Association of Queensland. Carolyn Keighley is teacher-librarian at Lowood State School and Learning Place mentor for the West Moreton district. Together they have set up a Learning Place for the network. Carolyn has been the teacher-librarian at Lowood State School and a member of the Ipswich teacher-librarian network since 1998. Once a week she wears another hat, that of learning mentor for West Moreton district working with teachers and school staff to build skills to support the ICTs for learning initiative and promote effective use of the Learning Place in teaching and learning. As part of this initiative, she has been heavily involved in online communication. This led to the establishment of an Online Literature Festival hosting online chat with authors and illustrators as part of the Ipswich Children's Literature Festival 2003.

Session title: Using the Learning Place – The Ipswich district teacher-librarian network has set up a professional community within the Learning Place. Here all network members can share and disseminate information pertinent to the group, such as useful websites, documents and ideas. It has become a shared briefcase of resources and information and it has allowed the network to showcase innovative and professional network practices. Any member of the network can add to, or edit data on the site. This means theoretically that the maintenance of a website is no longer the responsibility of one person and group members can take more active ownership of the site.

Denise Tarlinton, Kurwongbah State School: Denise Tarlinton began her career as a teacher-librarian in Mount Isa in 1992. Since then she has held executive positions within SLAQ and SLAQ Murrumba and was Conference Convenor for SLAQ 2000. She is currently teacher-librarian at Kurwongbah State School, a multi-age P-7 school in Petrie. She also works as a casual lecturer in the School of Cultural and Language Studies in Education within the Graduate Diploma in Education (Teacher-librarianship) course at QUT.

Session title: Talking the talk, walking the walk and strutting our stuff! Advocating the role of the teacher-librarian within the school community and beyond – " A pebble cast into a pond will cause ripples that spread in every direction", Dorothy Day.

This workshop will involve participants in an interactive investigation of the ever-changing role of the teacher-librarian and the exploration of a number of strategies for advocating their role within the school community and beyond. (Running throughout the session will be a visual display of how the teacher-librarian and librarian are portrayed in contemporary children’s literature). Participants will leave this session with a wealth of information, links to resources and practical strategies that will encourage and motivate them to talk the talk, walk the walk and strut their stuff within their school community and beyond!

Deborah Turnbull and Belinda Weaver, University of Queensland: Deborah is the Manager, Information Skills and Community Outreach for the University of Queensland Cybrary. She has held a number of positions in the Cybrary, particularly in the areas of information retrieval and information technology and has also worked in the library as a liaison librarian. Deborah has worked extensively in the areas of networking and systems implementation and was jointly responsible for setting up the University of Queensland Cybrary’s first Internet training courses for staff and students and the Cybrary’s first SilverPlatter ERL Servers. She currently also coordinates the UQL Cyberschool, an initiative of the University of Queensland Cybrary. Belinda is currently the Co-ordinator of ePrints@UQ , the ePrint Archive of the University of Queensland . She has worked in libraries for more than twenty-five years. She maintains the web log, journoz:updates for Australian journalists . This log has been running since late 2002 and the full archive of entries is searchable by date or by category. Catch the Wave: find good information on the Internet fast, her book about finding high quality information sources online is now available

Session title: Internet Search Tools – Ride the Wave – There are two distinct types of subject directories on the Internet. General or multi-subject directories index resources for many different topics and subject-specific directories index resources for one topic only. Search engines are programs which search indexed databases of Internet resources. They are generally the fastest way to find specific information on a topic.

Last updated 23 July 2004