Where do I begin? Attending the GaETC always gives me so many ideas that it’s hard to pick just one to start implementing! From weblogs to wikis, there are so many ways to incorporate technology into the world of education that make learning enticing for our students, and that can have a huge impact on retention. I learned from Tina Jenkins and Herman Wood how to use student blogs to teach children about historical figures, and from Dr. McAllister and Susan Bothman how to link math activities to children’s literature. Patrick Crispen had many great tips on the best ways to use Powerpoint and how to keep your home computer more secure. I found some great new ideas to implement from the media specialists that presented at the Exemplary Media Programs session. All the sessions provided inspiring methods to get our students more excited about learning and I’m looking forward to trying these new approaches. I am a media specialist in an elementary school and I would like to share a few projects that I have implemented that may inspire other media specialists.
I’ll start with my first project. I used a great idea from another conference that I took a step further using technology in the form of a Powerpoint presentation. I started a Caldecott Club for our first and second graders and challenged the students to read 20 Caldecott books during the year and then take an AR test. When I realized that many of our young readers weren’t able to take AR tests yet, we asked them to write a report on their book. They were to draw (or create on a computer) a picture of their favorite part of the book and write one or two sentences describing the picture. Taking it a step further, we scan the “reports” into a computer, copy the picture into a Powerpoint program, and have the Powerpoint program run in a continuous loop on the circulation desk throughout the day. Not only are the students excited to see their work displayed, but it encourages other students to join the Caldecott Club and write reports so they can have their presentation added to the display.
Another project I am implementing with technology involves the use of Powerpoint to create a Library Orientation presentation. Orienting students to the media center can be a little boring when you stand in front of them going over rules and location information, especially for the older students who have heard it before. By showing students a Powerpoint presentation that contains pictures of different areas in the media center and challenging the students to come up with the name or description of that picture and the rules that apply, you can create a fun way to orient the students to the media center or provide a mid-year review. 
For example displaying the circulation desk provides a great opportunity to review all the rules on checking out a book. Students could also be divided into teams and compete for prizes.
For the older students, I am venturing into the Wiki world. Creating a Wiki page for a research project on endangered species that the students can access through our web-based catalog program has been surprisingly easy. By linking specific websites for the students to use as an introduction to the topic in the Wiki, and then later using the websites for their specific research projects is an exciting and technology-rich way to deliver information to the students. Using PBWiki has been an easy introduction into using Wikis, and I will be implementing this project soon. I will create even more Wiki based research projects in the future.
Not only was I inspired to try new things after attending the GaETC conference, but I also received many new websites to explore. There are many new ideas that I will be implementing in the future.