NOTE: NO ALTERNATIVE DATE! If it snows.... there will be a ONE HOUR DELAY.

Keynote Speaker - Jeff Whipple

"Digital Footprints: Personal Branding on the Web"

Simply send an email and you have left a virtual track.  With their appetite for social networking and digital media, our students are treading heavily on the digital landscape, often with little regard for the impressions they leave.  As adults, we tend to talk a lot about what NOT to do on the web but our students' future will demand an ability to develop and manage a personal web brand – our kids will need to be "google-able!" As learning leaders, how can we help them use their web presence as a 21st century calling card?

Jeff Whipple Bio

After a variety of careers in media, engineering and public lands management, Jeff submitted to the call and became an educator ten years ago. "It always seemed to be a matter of when, not if, I would follow my dad’s footsteps as a teacher," he notes.

His first job as a teacher forced him to reconsider his traditional narrative of learning. Assigned to a multi-aged, rural middle school class with sixty-five students, three teachers and one large room, he began to think that maybe school didn’t have to mean desks in rows and endless lectures. A couple of years and a school change later, he was asked to pilot the first 1-to-1 student laptop class in his hometown of Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Based on the success of the initial 1-to-1 program, Jeff was tagged as a school-based Technology Learning Mentor for School District 18, charged with supporting over 40 teachers and 800 students as the 1-to-1 program was expanded school wide. For the past four years he has continued to help schools and educators throughout his district interrupt their traditional industrial narrative of school and replace it with a connected and collaborative model with students as digital content creators assuming a central thesis for the learning.

In addition to his day job, Jeff has shared his stories about the intersection of learning and the web at various conferences across North America and also teaches courses about the web as a learning tool in the undergraduate Education program at the University of New Brunswick. To find out more visit Jeff Whipple's website

Other Speakers

Lynn Mayer from Old Town and Jennifer Stone will be presenting at the Spring Fling with the emphasis on the elementary level. They will explore challenges, compare resources, and identify 'next steps' for librarians as key players in developing responsible students in the digital world of today and tomorrow.
Jennifer Stone is the librarian at Alton Elementary and Viola Rand School in Bradley – both part of district, RSU34.

Amy Ryder will be presenting on the CommonSense Media Digital Citizenship curriculum (http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators) and how it has been successfully adapted at Mountain Valley Middle School.  Participants will learn the basic format used at MVMS and sample a few of the lessons that we found most successful. Amy Ryder is the librarian at Mountain Valley Middle School in Mexico, Maine.  This school is part of RSU 10, where digital citizenship is an RSU-wide initiative.

Donna Chale (Warsaw Middle School) & Ellen Spring (Rockland District Middle School)
Why should you implement a Digital Citizenship curriculum in your middle school?  Come learn how two schools have been able to do this, what the curriculum content includes, what the librarian's role is, and what the impact has been. Hear how Edmodo was used in one school.

Megan Blakemore (Westbrook High School)
Megan Blakemore will present how she uses music to explain the importance of ethical use of information. Using resources is compared to sampling music. Her lesson not only teaches students how and what to cite, but also why they should do so. She will present her lesson and talk about how you might adapt it for use with your students.
Directions to MASL Spring Fling 2011

If coming via Bangor and Route 1A to Ellsworth.   The school is located just off 1A as you come into town.  After the traffic light by Ellsworth High School you will see a small mall on the right including a Dunkin Donuts. Take the right by Dunkin Donuts and **continue past it.  You should be able to see the school from there. You can take either the first or second left to get to the school and you will enter the building through the main entrance. 

If coming up Routes 3 & 1 from Belfast and beyond use this variation of the directions:

When you come to the traffic light in downtown Ellsworth turn left onto Court Street and proceed past the Ellsworth Public Library and County Court House. Continue on Court Street to the next light.  From there you will be able to see the small mall noted above.  Take the left just after the Mall heading toward Dunkin Donuts and proceed as above **.
If coming from Downeast continue through the several lights on High Street and proceed as if continuing to Bangor on Rt. 1A. When you come to the light where Court St joins 1A the small mall will be on the left and EBS Building Supply on the right.  Take the left just after the Mall heading toward Dunkin Donuts and proceed as above **.

Suzanne Hamilton (Yarmouth High School)
Yarmouth High School has been a 1:1 school for eight years; much of our work and communication occurs online, via email, shared spaces like wikispaces, and student work that is presented on the Web. Three years ago we realized that we needed to begin conversations with our students about digital citizenship. We developed a program that seeks to make connections between students' virtual and 'real' lives, one founded in our school's guiding principals that draws on students' creativity to explore the challenges and issues associated with the online world. In this session I'll share the components of our Digital Citizenship program along with some student work.

James Jackson Sanborn, the Executive Director of Maine Infonet, will speak about the possibilities of the Overdrive program for school libraries.

Focus on the Future: Connecting Books & the 21st Century Reader
Join Public Librarian Deanna Gouzie and Public School Teacher Susan Dee and see how they are integrating technology in book groups, classrooms and in the library to connect kids with books! All examples will be from the freshly pressed Maine Student Book Award (2011-2012) Nominee List.

Directions to MASL Spring Fling 2011

If coming via Bangor and Route 1A to Ellsworth.   The school is located just off 1A as you come into town.  After the traffic light by Ellsworth High School you will see a small mall on the right including a Dunkin Donuts. Take the right by Dunkin Donuts and **continue past it.  You should be able to see the school from there. You can take either the first or second left to get to the school and you will enter the building through the main entrance. 

If coming up Routes 3 & 1 from Belfast and beyond use this variation of the directions:

When you come to the traffic light in downtown Ellsworth turn left onto Court Street and proceed past the Ellsworth Public Library and County Court House. Continue on Court Street to the next light.  From there you will be able to see the small mall noted above.  Take the left just after the Mall heading toward Dunkin Donuts and proceed as above **.
If coming from Downeast continue through the several lights on High Street and proceed as if continuing to Bangor on Rt. 1A. When you come to the light where Court St joins 1A the small mall will be on the left and EBS Building Supply on the right.  Take the left just after the Mall heading toward Dunkin Donuts and proceed as above **.