My first AASL conference experience was amazing! I’m on my way home after four days of learning and connecting. My mind is full of ideas that I’m ready to take back to my teachers and students; my heart is full of love for the amazing tribe that I am blessed to be part of and the relationships that have grown within our amazing Geek Tribe!

I was able to spend lots of time with teacher-librarians that I follow (okay, stalk?) and it’s just so fulfilling to be able to spend face-to-face time with the people who support me directly and indirectly as a school library professional. I mean, lunch with my the FABULOUS ladies that are Gwyneth Jones, Joyce Valenza, Shannon Miller, Cathy Jo Nelson, Brenda Anderson, Andrea Christman, Kyra Kreinbrook, Carolyn Starkey, Jennifer Nortrup, and others — YES, that actually happened!!

I think the conference really had a laid back, comfortable feel for me. A time for great conversations, sessions with wonderful new ideas, and just hangin’ with my peeps, yo. From beginning to end it was BEYOND amazing!

I’m so thankful that I was able to receive the Bound to Stay Bound travel grant that allowed me to travel to Minneapolis for AASL. Plus I got to meet a super cool new friend — thanks Autumn for being a great roomie! I also have oodles and oodles of love for my mentor (what what!) Gwyneth Jones who really looked out for me and introduced me around throughout the whole event. Between Gwyneth and Joyce, I definitely felt the love and appreciate their generous, giving spirits! Honestly, I’m one lucky girl!

Some of the ideas that I’m excited to try at CMS that I learned about in great sessions:

• 23 Things (although I won’t be doing quite so many “things”)
• Bookmark Contest
• Reading Lunch (not sure how to work this in against the xbox, but I’m going to try!)
• Battle of the Books
• More partnerships with our local public library
• Branding for next year when we move into the new school

Those are some of the ideas that I’m most excited about. I also can’t wait to get home and start sifting through the resources, recorded sessions, and all that good stuff on the AASL Virtual Conference page.

Here’s a little Animoto video with a few of the photos from this weekend! I can’t wait for everyone to put up all of their photos on Flickr to relive the fun! 🙂

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.