Conference 2009

Join library media specialists from around the state as we connect to the Digital Literacy Hub,September 30-October 2009 at the Marriott World Center in Orlando at the annual FAME Conference. Connecting to professional development begins on Wednesday with workshops. The morning is devoted to the Florida Power Library initiative, while the afternoon workshops include several BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptops) sessions. All the Wednesday afternoon workshops will help you turn your media center into a digital hub, including Get Connected to Your Administrators. Read more exciting details about the conference here!

Download the conference registration form. [.pdf, 2 pages, 310K]

Summer FMQ Published

Baffled by the social networking phenomena? And why would a school library media specialist use a social network? Read all about it in the Summer issue of Florida Media Quarterly! Read online or download.

FAME President's Message

Check out the 3rd podcast in the series: http://web.me.com/debsvec And please take time to click on the "comment" button  at the bottom of the podcast page and let FAME know what  you think of this method of communication,

The end of the school year came fast and furious for me as it did for many others I’m sure! To the normal fluster of activities on a high school campus we added packing up our campus to begin the transition to our beautiful new facility, which now stands on our former parking lot and football field.

The third in my pod cast series will give you a more intimate look at my group of girls whom I with met with weekly at lunch, the GSTARS (Gators = Superior Thinkers Attained by Reading.) The group is composed of two Level 1 9^th graders and two Level 2 10^th grade girls from four different Intensive Reading classes. The GSTARS utilized an iPod Touch to access the audio titles for the two novels we read this school year as well as being used to access the reading comprehension methodology we use, Cranium CoRE. The questions utilized in Cranium CoRE were a challenge for the girls but at the same time motivated them to find and prove the answers contextually. As the year progressed they had questions about “where this game came from.” As a culminating activity the girls were introduced to the author of Cranium CoRE via a video chat. As you will see in this third pod cast it was an interesting experience for all involved.

As you will read in the Legislative report the year ended better than we hoped but we were faced with compromises in each of our areas of concern. Thank you to our members who responded to Bob Cerra’s pleas for contacting the Legislature and letting your voice be heard. It made a difference!

The Conference is progressing and I am happy to report that despite a difficult year economically we are right on target with vendor participation and early registrations. The Conference Committee continues to develop new and engaging experiences for you at this year’s conference as we continue our giant step into 21^st Century technologies!
---Deb Svec

2009 FAME Election Results

Quick Legislative Session Update

from Bob Cerra, FAME Legislative Consultant

The general appropriations act and the FEFP runs have been released.  I have included links to the two documents below.  The final budget will include $11.9 million for library media materials.  SUNLINK was funded at $639,288, which is $639,288 more than preliminary House plans included.  Early proposals to limit the Excellent Teacher Program to only “classroom teachers,” which would have excluded school library media specialists, were rejected in the final conference process.  While this has been an extremely difficult session for funding of all items of concern in the FAME Platform, we were able to fend off three horrible proposals and ultimately ended up with the higher budget possibility in the budget conference process for each of the three items that FAME most cares about. 

The first document below is the FEFP runs, by district, for the public schools budget.  Of particular concern to FAME members will be page 6 of 57 where the statewide policy on instructional materials is established and page 36 of 57 where the initial estimates of the district by district instructional materials distribution are explained.  Page 36 includes the breakdown by district of library media materials.

The budget bill (the second link) is searchable.  I have pulled two sections of proviso out below my signature relating to instructional materials and SUNLINK.

Please note that the proviso directs the DOE to study how SUNLINK might be combined with other existing library databases.  While there are some problems with the assumptions of the study, it is likely that any thorough review of SUNLINK will improve the overall viability of the program in the future. 

Funding for the districts in general is such that massive program cuts should not be needed in most districts.  Many districts that started planning for “worst case scenarios” for the state budget may even be able to “buy back” instructional programs and personnel.  These decisions will be made locally and could require appropriate positive advocacy, but the statewide positions will allow for a much better delivery of school library services than might have been expected at the beginning of session two months ago. 

FEFP: http://www.flsenate.gov/data/session/2009/senate/appbills/pdf/fefp.pdf 

Budget:  http://www.flsenate.gov/data/session/2009/senate/appbills/pdf/confreprt.pdf  

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