Last month I attended the Computers in Libraries/Internet@Schools Conference in Arlington, Virginia. I attended some sessions on the CIL side and some on the I@S side. I am taking this opportunity to share some conference information with all of you.

Do you pecha kucha? It's not a disease or a food item or an exotic animal. It is a fast-paced presentation format. First of all, pecha kucha (peh-chak-cha) is a Japanese term for the sound made when talking kind of like our term "chit chat." For more history on pecha kucha check out the Wikipedia entry (did I just hear some blood boiling?!).

The pecha kucha format is 20 x 20 or 20 slides/images x 20 seconds per slide/image = a 6 minute and 40 second presentation. I watched a panel of well-known library tech bloggers present topics in this format. It was fast, fun and you still got the flavor of the topic. A timekeeper went to the next slide on each 20-second mark. Sometimes the presenter was ready and sometimes not. I'm bringing this up because it is a new way to present a topic in a short amount of time at staff meetings and professional development days. This format may also bring some fun to a dry meeting or topic. You don't always need 30 minutes or two hours to present something and get your point across. Check out this CIL/I@S video or Dan Pink's video to see pecha kucha in action.

I also attended a good session by Mary Ellen Bates. Her topic was how to be a super searcher and she showed several examples of good websites. These sites could be used by students and may even sway them away from a plain old Google search (although some of these sites are Google sites). I've selected some of Mary Ellen's recommended sites below:

Doubletrust - Compares results from Google and yahoo. You can set preferences for one site or the other.

Factbites - Displays results as a factual sentence from the source. It's a different way of looking at results.

Nationmaster - Provides national statistics and graphical information.

Textrunner - Looks for assertions. A very different way of looking at search results.

Searchmash - Results are sorted by type: blog, video, etc. Google but not branded.

Google's Timelines - Searches news archives for articles.

I hope that this information is helpful. I think it's good to know about a new way to make presentations. Maybe you could suggest a Pecha Kucha meeting or PD day so that several topics can be presented and everyone can learn and have fun (and participate). Anyone can spend 6 minutes and 40 seconds on some topic of interest!

It's always good to review search sites too. Many of us have a tendency to stick to one search engine - just like students! I hope the sites I mentioned above give you some new ideas on how to search for information and to share new searching techniques with students.