Welcome to the North Carolina School Library Media Association's Monthly newsletter!
Questions? Contact kenishasmith@ncslma.org
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Jenny Umbarger
NCSLMA President
2022-2023
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Whew! February was a doozy for me…how about you? I don’t understand how the shortest month usually ends up being the most professionally challenging and mentally taxing for me every year. I guess I should be appreciative that there are fewer days in the month. Amidst the challenges, however, I took time to tune in to the Winter Tune-Up. A huge shoutout to our regional directors and Lead Regional Director Robin Rhodes in planning and offering this great opportunity. It was a wonderful combination of pre-recorded and live sessions, and thank you to all of the presenters who shared their expertise! One session in particular was very timely for me - “Saying No to Yes” by Missy Perritt in Lenoir County Schools. While this was a live session, because I had said yes to other things, I was only able to halfway tune in and needed to watch the recording to really focus on the message. It hit home and it (along with taking a mental health day for myself) gave me some much needed energy to push through these next couple of weeks until our spring intersession. I recommend to anyone who registered for the Winter Tune-Up to be sure to watch! Here are a few things from the presentation that really resonated with me:
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By saying no to the things that do not align with your goals and priorities, you free yourself to be able to focus on the important things.
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Just because we can do something doesn’t mean you should.
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If someone has the power to ask you to do something, you have the power to say no.
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When you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else, and don’t let that “no” to something else be to yourself.
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“I don’t have the bandwidth right now.” - a great way of saying no shared by Kathy Parker
I appreciate Missy sharing this message and these strategies for “Saying No to Yes” at this year’s Winter Tune-Up. But we hope you all will say “Yes!” to sharing your experiences and expertise as our call to present opens for the 2022 Conference - “We Are Not Alone in the Library!"
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Jennifer AbelConference Chair, President Elect More information coming soon!
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Calling All Bloggers
NCSLMA has a small blog on our website. If you would like to contribute to it, please send submissions to kristysartain@ncslma.org. We're looking for news items, stories about your library, fun events you have had, etc. Pictures can be included and are welcomed. There are no minimum or maximum length requirements. Share some of the great things going on in your library!
NCSLMA's New Advocacy Coordinator
Thank you to Stephanie Powell for stepping up to volunteer as NCSLMA's Advocacy Coordinator. She will be working with Susan Sawin, our Advocacy Director, Dr. April Dawkins, our Intellectual Freedom Coordinator, and Lucy Wilcox, our Legislative Coordinator, to be a voice for school librarians across North Carolina. We look forward to working with you Stephanie! 
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2022 Call To Present Is Now Open!!
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The call to present is now open! We know NC School Librarians have out-of-this-world ideas. Submit your conference presentation proposal for the 2022 NCSLMA Conference "We Are Not Alone in the Library". This year's conference will take place in Winston-Salem on October 6th-8th. The call to present is now open and we are accepting applications for concurrent sessions (50 minutes) and mini-workshops (90 minutes). Proposals can be submitted until April 1st. NCSLMA members who have a proposal selected will have a reduced conference registration rate of $25. Non-NCSLMA members who have a proposal selected will have a reduced conference registration rate of $75. Submit your proprosal here!
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Volunteers Needed--Regions 1 & 2
Greetings from Your New Coastal Director
Sara Levin, Coastal Director
Kinston High, Media Coordinator
saralevin@ncslma.org
Hello, I look forward to serving Regions 1 (Northeast) & 2 (Southeast) as their director. I am looking for volunteers to serve on my advisory board. This board will represent their region/grade levels by selecting & planning professional development, social events (virtual & in-person if allowed), supporting our regions by addressing questions and concerns, and a little bit more as needed. I hope to have representatives from elementary, middle, and high school levels from both regions. I’m also looking for anyone from the Independent Region 9 who wants to join in the fun. Most of our advisory board meetings will be virtual unless we just want to get together in-person. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any suggestions, requests, or need help.
Closing Keynote--2022 Conference
We are excited to announce that Dr. April Dawkins will be our closing keynote speaker for the 2022 NCSLMA Conference! We cannot wait to see all of you October 6-8. Make sure you follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to stay up to date on everything NCSLMA.
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Submit your commendation for an organization that supports reading and/or NC school libraries!
Advancement
Director: Faith Huff Advocacy
Director: Susan Sawin
Awards, Grants, Scholarships
Director: Sarah Justice
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Book Programs
Director: Stacy Hersey
G-Suites
Director: Cindy Sturdivant
Membership
Director: Laura Aldridge
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Regional Directors:
Lead: Robin Rhodes
Social Media
Director: Alicia Luke Website
Director: Kristy Sartain
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NAO Robots a Favorite with Students and Teachers at Oakwood Middle School
NAO Robots a Favorite with Students and Teachers at Oakwood Middle School
By Allison Wilson
Media Specialist – Oakwood Middle School, an IB World School
  
Each year, I have the privilege of collaborating with our 7th grade CTE Teacher, Carolyn Campbell and her classes on coding NAO robots. Using the software program Coreographe, students code the robots to speak, move, dance, and perform other tasks. One student favorite is a tai chi dance, where the students code the robot to do the dance and try to get six of them to start at the same time and synchronously complete the dance. Students write jokes that the robot tells. Two students get together and program their robots to answer each other’s questions using voice recognition. We even have teachers get excited and participate – one of our seventh-grade science teacher programmed one to Rickroll a class. (If you don’t know what that is, it an unexpected playing of the song by Rick Aster, Never Going to Give You Up.) Learning to code the robots “helps students develop problem solving and analytical skills required to succeed in a knowledge-based and highly technological society.” (Robotics, S. (2020). Pepper and Nao, robots for EDUCATION: SoftBank Robotics. Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://www.softbankrobotics.com/emea/en/pepper-and-nao-robots-education). Being an IB (International Baccalaureate) school, the collaboration fits right in with our educational philosophy and use of ATL (approaches to learning) skills like communication, affective skills, transfer skills, reflections, problem-solving, and many others. We have incorporated research skills where students find out what artificial intelligence careers are available that culminated in coding the robots. There are so many applications that these students could learn to do with the robots and let’s be honest, they are just plain fun to teach and learn! Check out the bots in action! https://www.facebook.com/carolyn.a.campbell.5/videos/5320953497946547
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LAUNC-CH Conference Registration
Registration is now open for the 2022 LAUNC-CH Conference, Great Expectations: Building Unity and Strengthening Community. It will be held virtually on Monday, March 14, 2022. This year’s conference is free and open to everyone. Register at: http://launcch.web.unc.edu/conference/ The 2022 Library Association at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Conference will examine how we as library workers and students approach expectations of ourselves, our work, and our coworkers in a hybrid world. We look forward to welcoming our keynote speaker, Sofia Leung, who will speak on “Deconstructing Narratives of Good Librarianship.” Sofia Leung is a librarian, facilitator, and educator working towards fulfilling the promise of social justice in libraries and higher education. She was formerly an editor at the journal, In the Library with the Lead Pipe, founding editor of up//root: a We Here publication, co-editor of Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies Through Critical Race Theory with Jorge López-McKnight (MIT Press, 2021), and a facilitator for the Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy Immersion Program. Sofia's focus is on building community among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in libraries and beyond. A glimpse of the conference schedule can be found on the 2022 LAUNC-CH Conference website: http://launcch.web.unc.edu/conference/ Registration closes Monday, March 7, 2022. For questions, please contact: Linda Jacobson (ljacobso@email.unc.edu) or Alison Barnett (ammurray@email.unc.edu). Please tell us if you need any specific accommodation to participate effectively in this conference. If so, we will follow up with you. Please note that we strive to be an inclusive, accessible conference, but not all requests can be guaranteed.
Contribute to the next NCSLMA News & Notes!
We want to hear from you! Do you have an upcoming multi-school or district event, were you recognized in some way, are you involved in the coolest collaboration, or did you contribute in some other spectacular way that shows the value of school libraries and librarians? We know you did! So we want to share the fabulous things school librarians are doing across the state! Please submit links to articles, published materials, and/or graphics to Kenisha Smith (kenishasmith@ncslma.org). Materials should be "copy and paste" ready. Submissions will be edited and published at the discretion of the NCSLMA News & Updates Editorial Team.
Submission Guidelines Document
CONTRIBUTE TO THE NEXT NEWS & NOTES
Would you like to contribute to the next NCSLMA News & Notes?We want to hear from you! Do you have an upcoming multi-school or district event, were you recognized in some way, are you involved in the coolest collaboration, or did you contribute in some other spectacular way that shows the value of school libraries and librarians? We know you did! So we want to share the fabulous things school librarians are doing across the state! Please submit links to articles, published materials, and/or graphics to Kenisha Smith (kenishasmith@ncslma.org). Materials should be "copy and paste" ready. Submissions will be edited and published at the discretion of the NCSLMA News & Updates Editorial Team.
Submission Guidelines Document
© NC School Library Media Association | 151 NC Hwy 9 Ste B #188, Black Mountain, NC 28711 NCSLMA is a 501(c)6 non-profit organization (W-9)
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