Whew…Okay, let me back up….Friday this week I knew I still was bogged down with preparing for the ASOMEX Conference we were Presenting ON SATURDAY! LOl, AGH! However, after the official kick off Friday night with a great speaker, Marco Torres, (Check him out!), I was getting excited! I watched this utube video of him, and some of the material was similar (and this was 2009) but he was smart enough to pick topics that STILL are relevant today in 2011! 🙂 I think there are some lessons to be learned in the message he brought to educators, librarians, and administration in 2011! 🙂

Friday night,a new book store opened, Under the Volcano Books given as a reference to me from Daniel Hamilton! Let me tell you, after leaving the cocktail/mingling ceremony following the keynote speaker, I walked a friend from the metro and went to find the bookstore. I went a few times on the Chiapas street, but no go? Where was it? I really wanted to find it! I went home, rechecked the address, and did the mapquest walk and heck, I was on a mission to try again! 🙂 Overall the distance was about 6k each way…so I WAS going to try and find this place! (It was 8:30PM now!)

I walked past and saw numbers on the right street, jump from 38 and 42, where was 40 Chiapas?! 🙂 Ahha! Found it! It was down the end of an alley, and wow! An awesome looking house, where the last grand opening was held, books on sale, to fund the opening of the new bookstore Under the Volcano Books! I met the owner, and it was exciting to see an English bookstore in Mexico, and a group of people all interested in the same venture for books! 🙂 I found Amanda, Mark, Daniel, and others I met from the ASOMEX Conference I just met from ASF there, it was great! Some of the best places I am finding involve a search, new friends, and different locations! I headed back to put some final touches on the Saturday presentation, and out like a light!

🙂 ASOMEX! Saturday! I have to say, I was so excited to see a mix of Librarians, ADMIN, faculty, all teachers from elementary, secondary, primary together, and it worked well! 🙂

It was neat to see the vendors there too…

I have to say I learned so many things…:) Take a look at our page for the presentation!

I tried to stack the page, combined with Elaine, with the many things I had tried and used in and out of the classroom. BUT WOW! The workshops I went to were awesome!

1- Finding polleverywhere.com and 2 – todaysmeet.com ! WOW! Check them out! Oh there is more! Check out 3 – Edmondo.com!

Also, WOW< this is great. TED…..FIRST check out RSA….

then check out Ted Robinson and CHANGING PARADIGMS! HOLY COW!

As if this was not enough – we went to Alejandro Archundia! OHMYGOSH! We put clown noses on took pictures in iphoto, of various expressions, switched places with different peoples’ laptops, and took similar pictures, as a basis for a story writing workshop! WOW! IT WORKED! And I learned how to to imovie in 5 minutes! These were unbelievably educational and exciting!

When we did out workshop it was a challenge to get all in within 2 hours! Elaine was awesome and showed she did so much more than what a typical “Librarian” is supposed to do, and that was the main goal, showing the fact that the word Librarian is a joke, there is oh so much more a good librarian does! 🙂 It is not for just book shelving anymore, lol … I hope the resources we provided were enough to show there is so much out there!

Overall, this approach to a conference is GREAT! I was excited to see this much challenge to teachers and possibility 🙂

Very exciting and wow, not a bad way to spend a weekend with so many valuable resources to use! I hope this can carry on to NCTE in Chicago, Illinois! 🙂 (Fingers crossed).