Kathy MacMillan is a freelance writer and nationally certified American Sign Language interpreter. She is the author of Nita's First Signs (Familius Press), as well as the author or co-author of many books from ALA Editions, including Little Hands & Big Hands: Children and Adults Signing Together and the Storytime Magic series. She was the library/media specialist at the Maryland School for the Deaf from 2001 to 2005 and has worked in public libraries since 1996. She presents storytelling programs introducing sign language through Stories By Hand and offers training and resources for enhancing storytimes through Storytime Stuff. Her debut young adult novel, Sword and Verse, was published by HarperCollins in 2016.

Creating Outstanding Online Storytimes Workshop—Group Rate
While completing your purchase, fill in the name and e-mail address of the group leader who will sign in to the event by clicking the "Attendees" button to the right of the item in your cart. This individual will receive an e-mail from WebEx confirming registration before the event begins. Attendees should add messenger@webex.com to their approved email sender list, so they can ensure that they receive the automatic notifications.
Time: 2:30pm to 4:00pm EST
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Creating Outstanding Online Storytimes Workshop
A 90-minute workshop, Wednesday, March 3, 2021, 2:30pm Eastern/1:30pm Central/12:30pm Mountain/11:30am Pacific
With many libraries currently closed to the public, library staff are turning to online storytimes as a way to provide quality programming for young patrons.
Join veteran storyteller Kathy MacMillan to explore the fundamental differences between online and in-person storytimes and best practices to bring early literacy programming into an online environment. Learn how to plan video-friendly programs, how to keep your programming interactive even when you don’t have live feedback from storytime attendees, and how to manage external stresses such as technological glitches and internal stresses such as camera fright.
After participating in this event, you will:
- Understand the fundamental differences in approach to online and in-person storytimes
- Have at least three concrete strategies for making online storytimes interactive
- Be able to implement strategies for dealing with external and internal stresses
While completing your purchase, fill in the name and e-mail address of the group leader who will sign in to the event by clicking the "Attendees" button to the right of the item in your cart. This individual will receive an e-mail from WebEx confirming registration before the event begins. Attendees should add messenger@webex.com to their approved email sender list, so they can ensure that they receive the automatic notifications.
Registrants, even if they miss the live session, are given access to an archive of the event for a period of 3 months from the date of the live session. The archive can be viewed at any time during this 3-month timeframe. The archive contains a video representation of the event, which includes all chat, audio, and visual material. In order to receive the archive information, please follow the instructions received upon purchase to confirm your registration in WebEx.
This is an online event hosted through WebEx. Further technical information is available at the ALA Store FAQ page.
Bulk Orders
For pricing on bulk registrations, please contact alastore@ala.org.
If you have any questions about this workshop, please contact us at elsmarketing@ala.org.
At Your Service
Accommodations are offered based on user needs. For transcription or other accessibility requests, please contact us at elsmarketing@ala.org.