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Learning Round Table Programs, Events, Battledecks at ALA Annual

June 9, 2010 By

The Learning Round Table has something for everyone at the ALA Annual Conference this year. The following is a list of programs, meetings, and events.

Also note the icons next to each event. These icons have links that will download the program as an appointment to your calendar. If the icon does not work, try right clicking and saving the .ics file before opening it. We also have a flyer that you can print and bring with you (click the image below to download).

Friday, June 25

Beyond Face to Face: New Methods for Staff Training
8:30am-12pm
Renaissance Hotel Congressional Hall C

Limited time and busted budgets make it increasingly difficult for library staff to leave their buildings to attend training events. Maverick library trainer Jay Turner along with T is for Training host Maurice Coleman and instructional designer Mary Beth Faccioli will demonstrate how to engage learners with effective and innovative uses of e-learning. Walk away from this pre-conference knowing how to: Identify free and cost-effective resources for presenting e-learning; Apply best practices in instructional design to e-learning; Recognize technical constraints in publishing e-content. Tickets Onsite: $150. Event Code: LEA1.

Saturday, June 26

Open Board Meeting I
8am-12pm
WCC-159 A/B

Our Board meetings are open to anyone interested in the activities, mission and work of the Learning Round Table. We discuss both old and new business, review goals, strategize and plan for the future, plot out committee work and have fun, too. Join us for all or part of our two meetings. We’d love to meet you!

Building with Competencies
1:30-3:30pm
Grand Hyatt Constitution A

Once you’ve determined the competencies needed by your staff, what next? Competencies are building blocks—there are a variety of constructions to be built with them for guiding staff training, recruitment, and other personnel strategies. Join us as we explore strategies and case studies of competency based staff development efforts. Presented by Betha Gutsche and Sandra Smith.

Sunday, June 27

Library Trainers as Leaders
10:30 am-12pm
WCC-201

Library staff development programs are in a state of flux. It is no longer enough for administrators to tell staff what training to offer. Workplace learning and performance professionals need to be part of the strategic planning of the organization. This interactive session will include audience participation and sharing of best practices as to how library trainers can step up their leadership skills and get a place at the library strategic planning table. Facilitated by Paul Signorelli with panelists Maurice Coleman, Sandra Smith and Louise Whitaker.

Training Showcase: Best Practices in Training, Staff Development & Library Continuing Education
1:30-3:30pm
WCC-Ballroom

The training showcase is a poster session type of program celebrating innovative continuing education, staff development, and training initiatives in all types of libraries and library organizations. Participants present best practices from their organization or institution.

Membership Pavilion Learning Round Table Lightning Talk
3:30-3:45pm
Exhibit Hall

Monday, June 28

Open Board Meeting II
10:30 am-12pm
WCC-156

Our Board meetings are open to anyone interested in the activities, mission and work of the Learning Round Table. We discuss both old and new business, review goals, strategize and plan for the future, plot out committee work and have fun, too. Join us for all or part of our two meetings. We’d love to meet you!

Staff Development Discussion
1:30-3:30pm
WCC-143A

This discussion is a great energizer for those new to staff development as well as for those who’ve been doing it for years. Come early and stay for the raffle at the end of the program.

Battledecks: The ALA Rumble Royale
5:30-7pm
WCC-103A

Battledecks represent the ultimate challenge for public speakers as they are challenged to give a coherent presentation based on hand-selected, seemingly unrelated slides that they see for the very first time live on stage. This competition, often referred to as “PowerPoint Karaoke,” will see our brave and willing participants compete for the glory of being crowned ALA’s reigning Battledecks champion. The participants will face judgment from a panel of four judges, with the winner to be determined based on a variety of criteria and general overall awesomeness. Hilarity, along with some learning, is guaranteed for all!

Defenders of a title:
Michael Porter(Battledecks champion from Internet Librarian 2009)
Andromeda Yelton (Battledecks co-champion from ALA MW 2010)
JP Procaro (Battledecks Champ from Pres4Lib)
Bobbi Newman (Battledecks co-champion from ALA MW 2010)

Contenders for the title:
Jason Griffey
Buffy Hamilton
Lisa Carlucci Thomas
John Chrastka
George Needham

Judges:
Peter Bromberg
Julie Strange
Maurice Coleman
David Lee King
Jenny Levine

Emcee: Janie Hermann
Timekeeper/Vanna White: Patrick Sweeney
Slidemakers: Alice Yucht, Patrick Sweeney, Janie Hermann, Jaime Corris Hammond, Andy Woodworth and anyone else who volunteers.

Event and Prizes sponsored by American Libraries and The Learning Round Table.

Lori Reed

Lori Reed, Managing Editor of ALA Learning, has more than 15 years experience in training and is the Learning & Development Coordinator for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library where she oversees the learning & development of a diverse group of staff at twenty libraries. Lori’s passions are performance consulting, learning strategies, and e-learning. Lori is coauthor, with Paul Signorelli, of Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers. Lori also blogs at LoriReed.com and can be reached at lori[at]lorireed.com.

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Tipping Points and Cows

March 31, 2009 By

It’s not as if trainer-teacher-learners—a group which includes nearly anyone currently affiliated with or using libraries—have any extra time on our hands. There are mornings when the act of opening our eyes and glancing at our to-do lists is enough to make us want to dive back under our blankets, close our eyes, and hope that visions of things to be done will somehow miraculously vanish before we move out of the comfort of our beds.

That, however, didn’t stop several of us from immediately rising to the challenge posed by our fellow CE Buzz blogger Peter Bromberg this morning when he noted–in much kinder and gentler words than I’m using here–that we’ve become somewhat slothful about keeping up our commitment to contribute to CE Buzz and the community of learnersit represents. In asking us whether we wanted to continue as contributors and, more importantly, whether we were willing to commit to a fairly easy schedule of posting articles so that fresh content appears regularly, Peter inadvertently reminded us why we were so attracted to the site initially.

My immediate reaction was to call Peter; discuss what we’re doing and what we might be doing better; and promise that I would return sooner than later. Excited and encouraged by what we know will come of this, we both noted that there seems to be a rising wave of energy and excitement around the work CLENE is currently doing and the level of commitment CLENE members bring to the organization and to our parent organization, the American Library Association.

The blog, for many of us, is both an extension and an integral part of what CLENE provides and inspires—a 21st-century physical and online variation of the Third Place which Ray Oldenburg, inThe Great Good Place, suggested we need in addition to home and workplace. It should and deserves to be nurtured. And it’s only going to grow if those of us who are committed to contributing to it meet our commitments, and those of you who are drawn into this community of trainer-teacher-learners become active participants through your responses and engagement with all that CLENE and CE Buzz can offer.

“It feels as if we’re right at a tipping point,” Peter commented, and I began to laugh, for even though I recognized the term “tipping point” as coming from Malcolm Gladwell’s book which uses the term as its title, my mind—in equal states of exhaustion and hyper-caffeination—began to latch onto the word “tipping,” picture things being tipped, and—for no reason I can offer other than my penchant for always enjoying word and visual playfulness—started thinking about things being tipped over. Like a glass of wine. Or a glass of milk. Or, in the oft-cited image which must hearken back to our rural roots and people with too much time on their hands, cows—as in “cow-tipping.”
Now please understand that neither Peter nor I are suggesting that we’re going to pursue cow-tipping as a learning technique or a fundraising effort on behalf of CLENE or any of its activities under the auspices of the American Library Association. (I frankly doubt that ALA and its incoming president, Camila Alire, would be very supportive of this kind of endeavor.) On the other hand, the trainer-teacher-learner in me did spend a little time this afternoon with Wikipedia and other sources to learn more about the alleged practice of cow-tipping and read the wikipedians’ report that “According to popular belief, cows can easily be pushed over without much force because they are slow-moving, slow-witted and weak-legged, have a high center of gravity and sleep standing up. Numerous publications have debunked cow-tipping as a myth. Cows do not sleep standing up, nor do their knees lock, making the act of cow-tipping impossible.” (See, you actually learned something by staying with me this far into the blog.)

Please, furthermore, don’t expect us to suggest that current efforts to find a new look and logo for CLENE’s materials might somehow involve the image of a cow being tipped over while engaged in learning—at least not unless other CLENE members and ALA’s wonderful membership director, John Chrastka, want to make a connection I’m not willing to make right now. (No, John, I won’t hold my breath waiting for you to take the lead on this one.) But do understand that if we could take the time it took to have that conversation this morning and giggle over improbable images and apparently non-existent pastimes, we and our fellow CE Buzzers certainly can carve out the time to continue thinking out loud here on the blog in the hope that some of the more serious ideas and practices which we document and propose will somehow contribute, overall, to the improvement of the training-teaching-learning arena which we all so clearly cherish. And we hope you’ll join us here on the blog, as well as in CLENE, as we continue promoting creativity and innovation in workplace learning and performance to the benefit of libraries and all we serve.

For more information about CLENE and how to join the group, please follow this link.

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

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