Welcome to the 2021 ALA Annual Conference! Whether you have already explored the #alaac21 virtual platform or not, your first step each day (after you gather your breakfast and/or morning beverage!) should be to check out what’s available on that day’s schedule. Start by clicking on Daily Schedule in the far left panel. This area will show you all the major events or featured speakers, and you can click the star on the right side to add that event to your personal schedule.
Those major events are exciting, but there’s more on offer, so don’t forget to click the Education Programs to see what’s available live and on-demand. And definitely check out the Poster Sessions! You can access a visual display through the poster gallery, or you can add the titles of the posters to your schedule and “visit” at any time. Some even have an audio element that allows the researchers to guide you through their presentation asynchronously. As an example, I just viewed the poster “Digital Bibliography of Children’s Literature to Celebrate Multilingualism and Facilitate Translanguaging Pedagogies” from Grace Enriquez and Meg Burns of Lesley University. Their poster/presentation provides visitors with a sneak peek of their work-in-progress: a web-based, searchable bibliography of multilingual children’s books which is set to go live in September. This tool could be very useful for ALSC members, especially those who work in schools and partner with classroom teachers for curricular support.
Keep in mind a few things as you navigate in and out of live events:
- If you are having technical difficulties, you can click “Technical Support” at the bottom of the Home Page to get specific assistance
- To access the live stream, click the title of the event. Then click Live Stream in the top right and hit the play button on the screen when it appears
- Feel free to participate in the chat by greeting your fellow participants or sharing favorite moments with the crowd. If you’d prefer not to see the running live chat, you can switch that side panel to the “Help” side
- If you miss a live event, you can still watch it later by clicking “Video” to start the recording of the live stream