Saturday, February 22, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
Blog 3: Media Center Webpages
As we continually use technology such as websites, social
media, or even Instagram to share information, it becomes increasingly
important to make sure that you are visual to the online world. I think that this is also applicable to
school media centers in that they should be promoting themselves to teachers,
students, parents, and even the community through their websites, blogs, or
social platforms.
While researching a lot of different media center websites,
I’ve added up a list of my favorites and my least favorites with my personal
opinions and comments.
Favorites:
1.
Milton Middle School- Milton, Wisconsin
My immediate thought when pulling up this
site is that it is very aesthetically pleasing. The layout and graphics are
nice and pop, drawing the user to important links on the site. I enjoyed that
the site included a link for media center policies, which is easily accessible
for teachers and students. I also enjoyed the fact that the media specialist
included a large bio on herself, because I think that is an important element
for a parent/teacher connection.
2.
Lewis and Clark Elementary School – Liberty,
Missouri
When I came across this site, I was at
first a bit overwhelmed with the amount of content, but soon came to enjoy and
appreciate all of the detail that the media center team put into this site. Of
particular interest is the twitter feed to the left side of the screen. I think
this is a great way for students, parents, and teachers to keep up with library
happenings!
Least Favorites:
1.
Knoch Senior High School- Saxonburg, PA
While this site does have some useful
information, it really lacks in esthetic appeal and doesn’t do much to promote
the library. When trying to find information, I think that having a clear,
concise format is ideal for students, teachers, and parents. This site seems to
be lacking in a particular format and includes way too many “outside resource”
links.
2.
Cass High School- Bartow, Ga
This is another site that needs a lot of
help. I did appreciate the fact that the media specialist included a book
search; however, there is no other useful information to be found on the site.
There are links to encyclopedias, weather, and databases, but it really gives
no direction on how to use these resources.
Overall, while searching through various
media center webpages, the ones that really stick out to me as “great” are the
ones that have a clear and simple format, but also contain information that is
actually useful for teachers and students. For example, the Cass High School
website contained a BUNCH of links to various resources, but gave no other information
as to what the site does or what information is available on that site. If I
were a student or teacher, I wouldn’t want to sit and go through each site to
determine which one(s) to use. I think as a media specialist, it is our
responsibility to “weed” through these sites and lists the best possible ones.
As far as ways to make a website, I
personally prefer using Weebly, now that I’ve been accustomed to it. In my
search, I came across tons of different website platforms, such as a Google
site, Blogger, and even pages created through the school’s webpage creator. The
ones that were made with Weebly, or the ones that contained their own domain,
stood out the most to me. They looked professional, creditable, and, in the most
cases, contained very useful information.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Wiki! Wiki!
Wikis are websites that allow multiple users to edit and
view. This means that although one person may have created the webpage anyone
can change the information. This can be very useful, but also has its issues. For
example in one of the articles it cautioned how careful you must be or you
could accidentally erase someone else’s contribution by mistake. One reason
that Wikis are so helpful in general is because information is constantly being
updated by multiple people. It is not the sole responsibility of one person to
try and keep track of everything and as new information is gathered it is
added. This can be a problem for researchers. As we all know we have been
cautioned throughout our life not to use one of the most well-known Wikis when
doing research… Wikipedia. Although a lot of the information is true, it is not
backed up by any research. Since it is a Wiki true to fashion it can be edited
by anyone with a username and password. This brings up another point. In order
to try and keep a Wiki from being corrupted by others you can require a
password to edit. This could help with the deletion issues.
Library 2.0 mentions 3 main ways that Wikis are used:
internal communication, institutional collaboration, and as a research guide.
Internal communication: this is a way to keep your
departments communicating and working together in a constant flow. In the media
center this could be useful between the media specialist and the staff. There
could be a category in the Wiki where teachers could keep a list of materials
they would like to see ordered, or materials that they use for units so that the
media specialist would already know what materials are needed and could have
them ready. Lessons could also be kept here in an extra effort to help with
collaboration, since this is something that seems to be difficult to do in many
situations.
Institutional collaboration: This is especially helpful for
larger counties that have multiple schools and locations. This will help the
media specialists and teachers communicate effectively and constantly. Since I am from a very small community with
only 2 schools (soon to be 1) this would help me mostly keep in communication
with the public library about programs and even books that I may need (since
our system does not allow for interlibrary loans with the public library)
A Research Guide: This is the use that I found the most fascinating.
I have never thought of this before but the media specialist can create research
categories and add websites and projects for students. Since it is a Wiki
teachers can go on and add sites or take down sites that are no longer in use,
add topics etc… This will keep the research guide up to date and useful for our
students.
Lastly, I thought a wiki would be a great place for students
to go and add book reviews and have ongoing conversations about books they are
reading. We have stated constantly how for students to care about reading they
need to feel invested. This would be a great platform to allow them to have an
opinion that others will read and comment on.
Finally, as I also read about a site called Wiki Index in Library 2.0. It was
suggested that if you were thinking about creating a Wiki to go and look here
there are tons of wikis that are here for you to become a part of and practice
with that have been created about just about any topic. www.wikiindex.com.
The Wonderful World of Wikis!
Wiki" is a
Hawaiian phrase that means quick and it is simply a webpage that can be manipulated
or edited by more than one user. This makes wikis ideal for educational settings,
but with a few drawbacks. Because the information on a wiki can be edited, deleted,
or changed by various users, it would need to be used for a specific purpose in
the classroom/media center. For example, any good media specialist will open up
their presentation on research with the warning to NOT use Wikipedia as a
source because the information can be manipulated. (Yet, I confess as teacher I have secretly used
Wikipedia in the classroom because it is easy to use and is not blocked like
every other website on my school computer!) A simple solution is when working on a project to have a back up of your information just in case it is accidently deleted. Yet we should take wikis at their
face value and see that a lot of them do have pertinent, correct information that
can also be used in a research capacity as well as project based.
Reading through the
literature, I was looking at wikis in two different perspectives: a teacher and a media specialist. As a
teacher, wikis can be very useful if used in the proper way. For example, I do
a lot of group projects in my classes. So having students set up a wiki to work
on their projects would be ideal. Of course, my students would need specific
guidelines but I think that it is great way to get them acclimated to different
technology. As a whole, my county does not have the most updated or workable
technology, and we have numerous software problems in the media center and our
computer labs. Since all you need is internet access to use wikis, this would
fit well for most technologically limited schools. Also, my students could work
on the wiki at home since it is internet based.
As a media specialist, wikis are an awesome
tool. Using a wiki to have students contribute to media based projects such as poetry month or book reviews would be wonderful to put on the media center webpage. They can be used internally like the Cobb County media specialist’s
wiki, which I loved, but they can be used as an icebreaking collaboration tool. I
think oftentimes media specialist go unnoticed as certified teachers and as
teachers we neglect the powerful ally we have in media specialists. So using
the wiki as a common denominator when collaborating would be key. It would also
help validate the media specialist as an actual member of the teaching staff to the students
and not just “that chick who checks out my books in
the library”. For instance, I was thinking of how my media specialist
and I could sit down and create a wiki based on research or even a book study. I would love for her to have assignments that they need to create and also for them to rely on the media center as their main source. Or even have her create or find a wiki for my needs based improvement class so that they can work on map skills in the media center.
There are endless ways that teachers and media specialists can utilize wikis
for collaboration. They thing is they just have to actually do it and I think that begins with the knowledge of how simple, yet powerful wikis can be. Wikis really are amazing tools for education and I cannot
wait it start using them!
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Blog 1: Podcasting
While
reading Fontichiaro’s article, “Podcasting
101”, I was intrigued to find that podcasting equipment is rather reasonable. She
states that a PC computer with an operating system of Windows 98 or newer can
handle the task which was surprising to me. What was not surprising to me is
the fact that podcast equipment for the MAC users is a little more expensive.
(In my experience, anything to do with MAC equipment is more expensive.) I
appreciated her research of the best (not to mention FREE) programs to use for
those librarians on a tight budget.
I was drawn to her section about “Students with
Special Needs”. When I was student teaching, my supervising teacher worked the
afterschool program for a few of the special needs students so I got the
opportunity to watch how these items really affect the lives of special needs
students. It is really a great product for special needs classrooms to have.
Another one of her ideas that I thought was great
was the Audio Tour. At our school, we always do a Black History Wax Museum
where the students dream up like a Black History Hero and give information
about them. It would be an awesome addition to have the students record
podcasts about their person and have students walk around with the audio like a
true wax museum.
I think all in all, this was a perfect first
introduction article to podcasting. The author describe what it was, how to get
it, and what to do with it. I really love all of the podcast ideas Fontichiaro
gave and cannot wait to use them in the future.
Fontichiaro,
Kristin. (Mar 2007). Podcasting 101. School
Library Monthly. Retrieved from http://medt7477spring2014.weebly.com/uploads/7/5/8/9/7589068/7477_podcasting101.pdf
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Blog 1: Podcasting
While reading about the in’s and out’s of podcasts, I became
intrigued to find out more information about this new technology and how others
are using it in their school libraries. I found a great overview article by
Esther Kredier Eash titled “Podcasting 101 for K-12 Librarians” on
Infotoday.com (http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/apr06/Eash.shtml)
I’d like to discuss a little more about Eash’s thoughts on podcasting and ways
in which it is beneficial to a school library program.
Eash believes that there are essentially two ways to use
podcasts: retrieving information or disseminating information. While podcasts
are a fairly new technology, there are schools out there that are beginning to
use this platform to distribute or receive information. Eash notes that from
her research, the problem with using podcasts in schools is that there isn’t a
great deal of quality podcasts for K-12 instruction, so many times she has
found that instead, media specialists are helping students and teachers create
their own podcasts.
Further into the article, Eash discusses ways in which she
believes podcasts can be integrated into school libraries: Promoting the library,
Using student products to share learning, Sharing school news, and Providing
professional development. I think that the examples Eash gives in her article
are great ways to incorporate the usage of podcasts into a media center, but I
also think that as schools become more involved with newer technology, the uses
of podcasts in schools will greatly increase.
Source:
Eash, E. K. (2006, April). Podcasting 101 for K–12 Librarians.
Retrieved from http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/apr06/Eash.shtml
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