The Fabulous Dr Joyce Valenza

I was very lucky to attend today's seminar with Dr Joyce Valenza here in Adelaide, and my head is still swimming from the sheer breadth she covered in the day. The whole day in terms of her presentation, her links and pathways can all be found here on her wikispace created for this down under visit. So I won't try and recreate the day actually that would be impossible because what the site can't convey to you is the sheer passion that Joyce has. It certainly won't demonstrate the furious pace at which our collective brains were filled - I was asked to run the backchannel which was quiet and understated, but participants were too busy listening, watching and checking out links and tools on their laptops to be throwing back too many queries and challenges. By only using the wikispace, you would not also appreciate the urgency in her message - encouraging and enthused - but urgent nonetheless. With an audience of mainly teacher-librarians, I got the feeling that the urgency is as much for the future of this role in schools as it was for the future of our students but of course, the two are connected.

So, thank you, Joyce, for a brilliant day. What your brilliant online resource does is enable those of us at today's seminar to go back through your day in smaller bite size chunks at a pace that allows for deeper reflection, fuller exploration and lengthy consideration of how to change and improve the learning for our respective student communities. It'll be something I'll chew for quite a while and is a very timely focus as I start in on my new role.

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2 thoughts on “The Fabulous Dr Joyce Valenza

  1. Tony Richards

    Hi Graham,

    Joyce was sensational and if anyone is interested her session in Melbourne has been recorded and provided online on YouTube by the School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV). So anyone that missed her talk you can relive the details, although it does not make up for the energy, passion and discussion of attending the event as you have pointed out. This link is to the first video for session 1 with the remaining sessions available – http://goo.gl/ydmFt

    Reply
  2. joycevalenza

    Thank you, Graham, for your kind post and the lovely (and flattering) collage! Thank you, Tony, too. I am so grateful for the hospitality of your group. I felt so welcomed all through my trip and I sense this is only the beginning of our work together.

    Reply

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