The 2009 conference has three main goals:

• To increase opportunities for media literacy education practitioners, researchers, and advocates to share ideas, information and curricula relevant to the field.
  We want participants to leave with renewed energy to grow the field in their local areas. The conference will give them an expanded list of resources on which to depend for structure, organization and curriculum development.
  
  
• To improve media literacy education knowledge base for those new to the field.
  We want participants to become knowledgeable about and competent in the use of emerging media literacy education practices.
  
  
• To establish media literacy education as the bridge connecting old and new literacies.
  We want participants to leave the conference committed to the growth of the media literacy education field and go back to their local communities prepared to engage in grass roots education efforts using emerging best practices in media literacy education.

The challenge is to cross that bridge!

"Bridging Literacies . . . Critical Connections in a Digital World" is an apt metaphor for the educational challenges facing teachers, schools and administrators today. The theme was devised to encourage varied participation by all, public and private, who are engaged in the educational advancement of the community. This list of community supporters includes but is not limited to:

• Educators
• Counselors
• Social workers
• Medical personnel
• The business industry
• Media specialists
• Media professionals
• Community organizations
• Faith based groups
• Civic leaders

The theme expresses the vital need for members of the literacy community to gather in one place and connect with each other. Individuals, groups and organizations that understand the importance of embracing "new" literacies will find at the 2009 NAMLE National Conference the support needed to share and learn innovative methods used to teach to children the skills associated with these literacies.

Participants will be encouraged to "cross over" their own personal bridge to new skills, new ideas and new attitudes that create important and critical connections in a digital world.

Bridges are the link between two distinct worlds that sometimes view each other with suspicion.
A well-constructed bridge provides a safe path to cross over the deep canyons or swift waters that keep us one from another. Schools today, some with a dropout rate of over 50%, need to clear new pathways to basic literacy that encourage students to stay in school and become engaged in learning how to learn for the rest of their lives, as well as pathways from basic literacy to the digital world. Like Detroit's famous Ambassador Bridge provides a safe path from one country to another, NAMLE serves as the ambassador organization helping educators, community leaders and students bridge conventional literacies to the budding literacies necessary for success in this century.

Bridges provide the opportunity to leave a familiar place and explore a new frontier.
As our children continue to expand their technical competence outside the classroom, schools must build bridges between the old literacy of reading and writing via book, paper and pen and the new literacies emerging through blogs, wikis, podcasts, flickr, games and more! What better tools to use for the purpose of instruction other than the tools students themselves use to navigate their world outside of the classroom? These tools will not only encourage students to become engaged in learning and stay in school but also to become participatory citizens for the rest of their lives. With a sound structure to cross over the rapidly changing, super-charged world of new technologies and new literacies, our students will gain the skills of collaboration, teamwork and creativity needed to maximize the power of the technology available to them 24/7.

Bridges are the juncture of many roads that come together at critical points to feed ideas and information, art and commerce to the other side.
To prepare students for living in a 21st century global culture, schools will need to explore powerful new pedagogies that create in students not just competence, but engagement; not just knowledge but understanding; not just presence but participation; not just passive consumption of messages but the ability to create and deliver messages. This is not only a time for students to learn and grow but also a growing and learning time for educators and for the community at large.

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