Ireland-Conference

I've been trying to decide how to write about my time in Ireland. 

Do I go day by day? Do I write about our sight seeing? Do I write about the conference? Do I write about the conference in general or my present?  Do I write about the looonnnngggg flight? Or the sheep? So many adorable sheep!

And when I do write about these things how do I organize my thoughts? And all the bazillion pictures we took... do I add those? If not all the pictures how do I choose just a few pictures?

All these choices!

It doesn't help organize my thoughts that when people at school have asked me how Ireland was all I have had time to says is "Ireland is beautiful. The conference was great! The food was yucky."

Those 3 short simple sentences aren't enough for a blog. Ha!

So....

The conference. I think I'll start there since it's the whole reason I ended up in Ireland. Specifically my presentation. 

The conference is call International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. IARSLCE for short cuz mercy that's a mouth full!

I quickly learned this conference was geared for university faculty and staff. I always got funny looks from other attendees when I told them I was an elementary librarian. Then I'd explain I was presenting a project a professor and I did together. Then everyone (yes, everyone) would then nod and smile in understanding. Ha!

The professor and I did a PechaKucha.  It's Japanese for chit chat. Luckily the secondary lead librarian had taught us librarians about a PechaKucha so I had some prior knowledge. 

Our presentation was called "A Reversal of Service-Learning: When Young Students Teach Student Teachers." We did 20 slides in 6 minutes and 40 seconds. 20 seconds for each slide was not nearly enough time. Ha!

There were 4 presentations in one session. After all the presentations the audience was able to ask each set of presenters questions. We had 3 professors ask questions. After the session 2 of them came over to ask more questions and got our contact info. 

At lunch another professor asked if she could sit with me and ask more questions. While we were talking and eating 2 of her colleagues walked up. She introduced me as "This is one of the presenters in that awesome session I told you about."

Dude! How cool is that?!?

She went on to say that the professor and I need to write a paper on our project and offered to send me lit reviews. 

I made so many great contacts.  I learned so much about what colleges and universities have to offer the community.