Wes's Highlights From IRA Convention

I only got to see two sessions at the Convention this year, but they were both awesome! I'm a little bias in my opinion, though, being that both sessions where the ReadWriteThink sessions and I'm a ReadWriteThink editor. But hey, there it is!

I spent a good chunk of the rest of my time at IRA's Bookstore. If you were there, I was the one happily scampering about saying, "Can I help anyone find anything? Answer any questions for you? Make up completely false facts about Chicago?" Towards the end, that last one became, "Recite some poetry?"

Yes, that options was picked a couple times.

Yes, I did actually recite poetry for attendees.

I also got to visit with some of IRA's authors! Jan Miller Burkins and Valerie Ellery both had book signing sessions in the Bookstore this year while I was there.


Jan is the author of IRA's Prevented Misguided Reading, Coaching for Balance, and Practical Literacy Coaching, and she's one of ReadWriteThink's authors too, having done a few strategy guides for our site.


Valerie is the author of IRA's Creating Strategic Readers, which I had the pleasure of copyediting back when I was a Production Editor in the books department at IRA.

In case it wasn't completely obvious, I'm the one who appears both pics.

I also got a chance to chat with Doug Buehl (Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines, Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning), Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp (Text Complexity, In a Reading State of Mind--which I also worked on), but no one conveniently walked by with a camera to snap a shot with me with them.

I do enjoy being able to catch up with authors at convention--wonderful people full of energy and a true passion to educate. Always striving to do more to help teachers help their students.

Wes

Getting back to work

And now we are back! What a busy-fun week that was. I had hoped to get a couple blogs posted from convention, but I didn't have time during the day and didn't have a computer with me at night. I could have done it from my phone, I suppose, but I don't care for writing anything long that way.

Maybe next year I'll have some sort of tablet device with me.

I thought the IRA Convention was a smashing success. I got to talk a bit to Kenny and Riley from Page Turner Adventures -- always fun to see them. Didn't get a chance to get in any shoots with them this year, though. Drats! Another missed opportunity to saturate the the 'net with more of me!

[Collective sign of relief heard from all other RWT Editors--and every other coworker around me]

Our two sessions were packed this year, standing room only. That was pretty cool. Big thanks to our presenters for making the sessions a success. The sessions were taped, and the links will be shared online soon, so if you missed it, you'll be able to catch them.

And now that I'm thinking back to it, I should have taken some pictures of people scanning out QR code! I heard from a few attendees that they had a lot of fun looking for the RWT QR codes we had scattered around the convention. We're still tallying entries, and should be alerting winners soon.

A lot of things were left in the works while we were gone, and now that we're back, they are ready for review and further processing. The redesign of the old Character Trading Card interactive, for one. I've already been playing with the new card creator this morning, and I am thoroughly liking it! I hope to share that link out with you later this week, once we've had an internal review. I'm excited about this one!

There's always more to talk about, but that would put me in to more long-winded than usual, so I'll stop now. More convention and post-convention updates later this week or possibly next week.

'Cause it is going to be a busy week!

Wes

Are we there yet?

No. We certainly are not there yet. But we will be there Friday!

By we, I mean the IRA team of ReadWriteThink.org, and by there I mean Chicago. Lisa and Christy, on the NCTE side, arrive Sunday morning. They are driving in from elsewhere in Illinois; I don't envy them the day they will have that Sunday--the five of us are in meetings all day after their few-hour drive! I do, however, envy them the time savings.

ReadWriteThink.org is presenting two sessions this year at the IRA Convention.

Engaging Learners With “Games” in the Elementary Classroom
Presented by Katrina Allen, Karen Pelekis, and Emily Manning
Monday, 3:00-4:00 pm, W180, Convention Center

Incorporating Tools Across the Curriculum
Presented by (our very own!) Lisa Storm Fink
Monday, 3:00-4:00 pm, W176B, Convention Center

The team will be at both of these, so if you have a pressing desire to meet us, you can do so then and there, and we'd love to chat with you! Also, one of the clues to the scavenger hunt is going to be at the sessions; another good reason to swing by.

Becky and I are both doing back-up duty at the IRA Bookstore in the exhibit hall, and Christy and Lisa work at the NCTE Booth in the exhibit hall. I'm not sure about the locations, though. Maybe I'll tweet those out on the RWT tweet feed when I know them.

In other news, an article about our Bright Ideas for Summer recently published in IRA's Reading Today Online. Lot of good information about the program in there. We're really excited about it, and we hope to get a bunch of parents working with their kids over summer on these projects.

I still have a lot to get done before I can leave for Chicago, and not a lot of time left to do it since I leave Friday. I better get back to work!

Hope to see you in Chicago!

Wes

Poems and QRs

 

In honor of national poetry month, I shall recite (um, link to) a few of my favorite poems:

The Jabberwocky by Carrol Lewis
Porphyria's Lover by Robert Browning

And since I can't find a link to the specific section of Fox in Sock, I shall simply list one of the my favorite lines from the Dr. Sues book:

"When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...

...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle."

I have tried to keep this line memorized, but I often screw it up in the quoting. It's tough.

And now I shall ramble about what I am currently working on.

Have I talked about QR Codes yet?

Hmmm, seems like I mentioned them two months ago and never mentioned it again. Bad, Wes! Bad!

QR Codes are funky looking little blocks of black pixels that can be scanned with most smart phones and tablet devices if you have the right software/app. If you look up QR Reader or something similar in iTunes or Google Play or what have you, you'll likely find several for free. You scan the code with the app and then are magically whisked away to a website.

Go on, give it a try, I'll wait.

Yeah, right from your monitor--it should work!

Pretty neat, right?

Anyway, at IRA's Convention in Chicago this year (this month!), ReadWriteThink is hosting a little scavenger hunt. We've got 5 different QR Codes printed on posters scattered around the Convention Center. While some of the QR Codes are repeated, they are color coded as well; each of the different colors will reveal a code word that completes a sentence.

Find all the words, complete the phrase, and send it to us for a chance to win!

"What if I don't have a smart phone?"

Excellent question! Each of the posters also lists the URL of the clue word--just copy that down and go that that webpage, you will see the clue.

Being the generous guy that I am, I'll even give you a heads up as to where you can find all the clues--you just need to get there and scan the code (or write down the URL).

The Green clue is at the International Reading Association's Bookstore in the exhibit hall.

The Red clue is located at the two ReadWriteThink.org sessions.

The Blue clue is located at the the National Council of Teachers of English's booth in the exibit hall.

The Grey clue is located at the entrance to the exhibit halls.

The White clue is located in your IRA Convention program.

Other than the white, none of those colors are even remotely close to the correct shade, but you get the idea.

If you are going to be at IRA's Convention this year, keep your eyes open and your phone at the ready.

And all of the RWT editors will be there too, at our sessions or our organization's booth/bookstore. Stop by and chat! We love to hear from our users.

Wes