SCASL Takes a Bite Out of Twilight
Oct 22nd, 2008 by Cathy Jo Nelson
Here is a picture from the SCASL Webinar featuring a discussion about the popular book Twilight if you missed it. Yes the time featured there is accurate too. Our webinar from 4-5PM today was attended by roughly 22 people, and was what I think a FIRST for SCASL. It was a fantastic cross section of school library media specialists, as well as others from the educational arena (I saw Martha Alewine in the chat, as well as Richland One’s tech educator Julia Davis, who assisted with the program we used, Macromedia’s Breeze.) I don’t remember a SINGLE snafu at all, but Macromedia Breeze is a paid service and considered very reliable. (Thanks Richland One for allowing us to use your resopurce!) Many schools, higher ed institutions, and businesses use the program to bring people together virtually.
We had a nice time picking the story apart, talking about characters, both in the book and in the coming movie, and spin off bonuses like an increased interest in classics like Romeo & Juliet, Jane Austen titles, and even Wuthering Heights–all titles the character Bella references in the books. We even came up with a display we could set up called “What would Bella read?” and give classic titles that are typcially only sought after in the required reading portion of high school Engish classes new life and circulations. Great ideas.
I shared a flickr set of pictures from one school’s Twilight Night held during Teen Read Week. I learned of it form the Teacher Librarian Ning here. Too bad most were at school where neither the ning or the flickr pictures could be ooohed and ahhhed over. These sites are blocked at most schools. Which also makes me realize I reference many pictures in my own blog from my Flickr stream or other pictures from flickr shared photos marked as available with a creative commons license. People who read my blog at school more than likely cannot see any of the pictures. Sigh. But that’s another post.
Well anyway, KUDOS to SCASL, Information Technology chair Anne Lemieux, IT member Julia Davis, and our hostesses from Kershaw County (Lugoff-Elgin High School) Karen Faulkenberry and Susan McNair. It was a fabulous event, and I hope SCASL will offer many more. Even though we only had 22 people there I consider this a ROARING success. I look forward to our next webinar–if that is what we need to call them, as we explore other tools. Next up I think will be Ustream.
Sigh, I missed the good stuff! I had a faculty meeting and guest speaker so didn’t sign onto the Webinar until around 4:25. Oh well, maybe next time. It sounds like you had a blast and I look forward to viewing/reading the archive. I agree that the system seemed to work well. There were only the usual “buffering” where the video stream hiccuped a time or two…but that is to be expected.
As for Flickr being blocked, I knew this when I started blogging and that is why I download the Flickr photos to my computer and upload them into Edublogs. Its a little extra work, but at least that way my readers can see them.
Heather I am so glad you were able to get in. Ive had several today to tell me they couldn’t get in. Next time we will identify some folks as “on call” to ask for help, and hopefully you will be one of them. As far as uploading your pictures to Edublogs, there is a limit with the free account. Have yo upgraded to the paid account? May want to check and see if you are not doing a paid account. I used up ALL my free space, and then someone enlightened me about not saving them to my space, but rather just inserting the image location. Now that I pay for my space, I suppose I could go back and do it your way. Thanks for the tip.
Cathy,
Thanks for sharing the webinar’s success with us. I was unable to even try to log on – this has been one of those weeks. Do you think that the time could be changed for the next Webinar to allow those who couldn’t attend this time due to time restraints?
Fran the next one will be a wee bit later. We wanted the first one to be something folks could try at school. But your request is already on the table for consideration. Sorry you missed.
Wow! Sounds like an awesome meeting! I am foreseeing a lot more online meetings now that the economy is going down hill. I am having one on November 11 for Council for Exceptional Children and I hope it is well attended as yours was.
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