Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

This weekend (well actually Thursday through Saturday) I attended the Minnesota Educational Media Association’s annual conference, and was slated for a Saturday morning keynote.  The best part of this surprise invitation is that my Saturday keynote would follow the true Georgian Peach, Buffy Hamilton, who opened the conference Friday with a keynote.  That’s right, two southern belles took St. Cloud, MN by storm, bring spring like temperatures and warm smiles.  The weather was gorgeous, though the temperatures were cooler than my comfort level from evening until mid morning. The fall foliage was just beginning to show great colors, and all reflected into the water right out my window!   St. Cloud was lovely, and I can easily see why the kind folks at MEMO chose St. Cloud.

Amazingly enough Buffy (coming from Atlanta)  and I (from Charlotte) arrived at the Minneapolis airport about the same time, and our planes left nearly the same time Saturday, so we sort of stuck together as we meanuevered our way around Minneapolis and St. Cloud.

The conference organizers provided a fantastic experience, and I enjoyed getting to know Dawn Nelson, Gina Light, Leah, Mary, and many other MN librarians and tech integrations specialists.  I especially enjoyed that I got to rekindle a friendship forged at ALA this past summer with Senora Sally Mayes (who teaches in a Spanish Immersion school!)

Sally is taking on their conference planning for next year, and by her energy and continuous flow of good ideas, I can tell she will live up to what took place this year!

Fond Memories:

• Buffy’s keynote! Buffy gave us a great start to the conference, providing us with key ideas aligned with the conference theme of balance.  She was extremely inspiring.
• Dawn Nelson and a Barnes and Noble sales rep showed off the Nook as well as other ebook readers, giving us a taste of how schools are dealing with ebooks. For me the jury is still out, but I think I could really enjoy a Nook.
• Doug Johnson and a colleague (didn’t remember the name and my conference book is in my luggage!) did a session on the perils of social networking as an educator, and gave some great tips for being smart and keeping your social networking life separate from the teacher life.  Great ideas for sharing with my teachers came from this session.  I want to get their notes!!
• Two LMS’s from Dawn Nelson’s district presented on Authentic Assessment tools–they had so many great ideas.  Dawn is going to get me the links/resources so I can peruse them more, and share them too.
• My own keynote, kicked off with short music clips of Tim McGraw’s “Southern Voice” and Jason Aldean’s “She’s Country!”  The McGraw song I shared is absolutely the truth–southerners do welcome visitors with offerings of food and sweet tea, and I knew it because that is exactly what I did when my son brought home a girlfriend from college in Chicago this past Labor Day, and it made me realize I am becoming my Mother and celebrating my southern roots!  I also played most of the first verse of Jason Aldean’s song as I really thought it in a round about way, represented me and Buffy, two southern gals!  Here is how they go:
  • (“Southeren Voice”) Smooth as the hickory wind
    That blows from Memphis
    Down to Appalachicola*
    It’s hi ya’ll did ya eat well
    Come on in I’m
    Sure glad to know ya
    Don’t let this old gold cross
    In this Allman Brothers t-shirt throw ya
    It’s cicadas making noise
    With a southern voice
  • (“She’s Country”) She’s a hot little number in her pick-up truck
    Daddy’s sweet money done jacked it up
    She’s a party-all-nighter from South Carolina, a bad mamajama from down in Alabama
    She’s a raging cajun, a lunatic from Brunswick, juicy Georgia peach
    With a thick southern drawl, sexy swing and walk, brother she’s all
    Country, (shoot) from her cowboy boots to her down home roots
    She’s country, from the songs she plays to the prayers she prays,
    That’s the way she was born and raised, she ain’t afraid to stay, country
    Brother she’s country
• I ended my presentation with a song to send the message that educators need to get in the mix and realize the potential of the tools since they are not going away (and I supposes as a witness to my religious views as well, since this is one of my favorite songs!!),  and so I played the chorus of Toby Mac’s City on Our Knees, and went like this:
  • (“City on Our Knees”) If you gotta start somewhere why not here
    If you gotta start sometime why not now
    If we gotta start somewhere I say here
    If we gotta start sometime I say now
    Through the fog there is hope in the distance
    From cathedrals to third world missions
    Love will fall to the earth like a crashing wave
    Tonight’s the night….

So I had a wonderful time, and I’m sure I am not through processing my experiences over the last 48 hours.  I had a terrific time, and Minnesotans are extremely nice people! They took very good care of me, and may have made me consider a northern clime as a potential spot to relocate.  Well, it IS nice in the fall anyway.

Oh, PS, I really don’t consider myself a “southern belle” but those folks in MN even before they new who I was said repeatedly after hearing me speak almost in chorus smiled and chimed often, “You’re not from around here, are you?”  Yep, I guess it shows!

Tags: Conferences, Professional Development