Submitted by:Lynn Jones

LOEX is a small (~250 attendees) conference all about information literacy, but I prefer to think of it as an instruction conference.

There are usually six concurrent sessions every hour, for four hours a day, total of almost 50 sessions. Unless you're one of those rude people who leave sessions in the middle, you can only go to eight of those sessions. I'm one of those rude people, however.

If weren't there, and I know you weren't, you'll be able to watch six of the sessions for free in the comfort of Berkeley on May 12, 14, 19, 20 and 21, when we present videos of them for group viewing. I'll be posting more details on the IDP wiki, but in the meantime, go to: http://www.loexconference.org/virtualsessions.html

Best thing I saw today was a presentation on teaching in large lecture classes by Joanna Szurmak, University of Toronto Mississauga. She was a compelling presenter, with a firm grasp of assessment, and a charmingly frank description of the challenges of collaborating with faculty. I was impressed with the rigor of her instructional design (yes, someone who actually mapped the ACRL IL standards AND Bloom's taxonomy onto the curriculum of the Psych 100 class she teaches.) Inspired me to try harder in my instructional design, and isn't that why we come to these kinds of things anyway?

Best idea I heard today -- libraries should have lockers for students with electrical outlets so students can park their laptops and recharge them while they go to class or have lunch. That was courtesy of Stephen Abrams, keynote speaker, whose talk was otherwise a really cursory skimming of a thousand cool apps we should all be using -- the kind of exhortatory speech that leaves me feeling techno-backwards and hopeless to catch up.