School Newscast

My field experience site, Pickett's Mill Elementary, has a daily morning newscast, which is taped in the media center's production room and broadcast over the closed circuit television system. It includes announcements, birthdays, the character ed word of the week, the lunch menu, the pledge, and the moment of silence. Linda Mullen, the media specialist, oversees the broadcast, but fourth and fifth grade students do all of the on-camera and off-camera work. At the end of the school year, interested students fill out a questionnaire, and get a teacher recommendation (based on behavior, personality; basically, how well the teacher thinks a particular student would do in performing the functions needed for the newscast), as well as a commitment from parents that their child will get to school on time to participate. A group of 8 students is chosen for every eight weeks, and they rotate through on and off-camera jobs each week (so that every student has a chance to do every job). On Monday morning, students from the previous week train their predecessors in the new job (2 cameras, someone to operate the laptop PowerPoint presentation that serves as cuecards, a mixer, and two main anchors and two "reporters"). Because the newscast is so early in the morning (it usually begins around 7:45), and I live 45 minutes away from the school, I've never seen it thus far, but am planning to do a full day in the media center soon, and am looking forward to witnessing it firsthand.

Social Networking Applications

When thinking about social networking sites and how they would apply to media centers in particular, I referred to our Library 2.0 book which gave many applications to consider:

-Social networking sites provide a new way for patrons to interact with the library.
-Social networking sites are forcing libraries to reexamine their roles and identities, and to rethink strategies toward remaining visible and valuable to users.
-Social networking sites enable libraries to "speak the language" of their patrons and to find out what they are intersted in.
-Social networking sites are a great way to "show the patrons the library".
-Social networking sites are a good way to "assess the patrons" through the use of surveys and focus groups.
-Social networking sites can be used by media specialist to interact with their patrons that are unfamiliar with the traditional research process.
-Social networking sites can be used for event promotion.
-Social networking sites can be used for outreach, educating patrons, and word of mouth.

I've personally used LibraryThing for saving and sharing my favorite book lists. I thought it was great and fun to use. As society continues to embrace web 2.0 technologies, we as media specialists must do the same in order to "speak" our patron's language. My personal focus is in elementary schools, so face-to-face sharing and applying is how we best educate. However, as our students move toward middle and especially high school, we must be savy enough to "speak in their language" or we'll lose their interest and respect.

The challenge with all social networking applications is filtering, especially in school settings. It will be interesting to see how this issue "plays out" in the future.

Social Networking in the Classroom

Many educators are faced with such intense scrutiny from their administration: does the classroom have the essential question, do the students know the standards, are the student scores acceptable, is there a word wall, is the teacher calling parents on a daily basis, etc...

With all of the pressures a classroom teacher faces one could easily say that a well organized social networking program could certainly make things easier for the teacher; however, the problem is that administrators have difficulty monitoring what is going on in the classroom if the teacher is utilizing technology. Our classrooms are not really for the students..they tend to be "set up" for the adults who have to determine if classroom teachers are doing their job.

I whole heartily believe in social networking as a learning tool and the kids who have the opportunity to use it mostly do well with it, but the work is not blazoned in the classroom for administrators to see. Now,this situation could be an opportunity for the media specialist to help administrators know what to look for when visting the teacher web pages, wikis, blackboard systems, etc...It seems to me that like most veteran teachers, most administrators fear change as well.

Perks of social networking in the classroom:
* It allows students to submit online, especially if they have jobs and such
* It allows parents to have a online connection to the teacher, which enables them to communicate other than by phone; this is most helpful since most teachers cannot access a phone during the day but can e-mail or blog and such (same for working parents)
* It opens the door for more group work opportunity
* It helps teachers and students with organization of units: standards can be posted so that students and teachers can access them at any time, and units and lessons can be accesssed for those who may need to review or look ahead.
* Parents can see what is going on in the classroom and possibly what their child has contributed or not.

Overall, social networking does not have to dominate the classroom but can be a resource that would make learning fun, let parents in on the action, and help the teachers and students by saving time in the actual classroom to learn and practice th skills that might be needed to acomplish the standards.

Why Have a Media Center Web Page?

Why Have a Media Center Web Page?

For many teachers, parents, and students, the media center webpage will be an introduction to the media center. A web page is a great way to keep in touch with your audience. The web page serves as an up to date, information bank of what the media center can offer. It’s a great way to keep parents informed, pull kids in to the media center (particularly after school), and collaborate with teachers.

What could be on the web page?

• Prominent link to and from the school website.
• Create fun on your website: jokes of the day, club info
• Blogs on current topics in the news that relate to classroom learning
• Links to news sites and kids websites (yahooligans, backyard jungle, Plastic Fork Diaries, PBS Kids)
• Online book club
• GPS related Pathfinders
• Links to reference sites (IPL Kids’ Space, Ref Desk, Kid Info)
• Suggested reading list
• Search the library collection
• Links to other libraries with who have a interlibrary loan relationship
• Staff info, library hours, and contact information

What can you do to help the teachers? You want to be sure that your website is used and promoted by people who really need it: The Teachers! By offering GPS related pathfinders and websites this can be a one-stop-shop for teachers to collaborate with the media specialist. With just a few clicks, the teachers will know what books and websites the media specialist will suggest. Also, keep a list of the technologies the media center owns.

What about the parents? By having the webpage linked to and from the main school website parents will be much more likely to use it. Keep parents up to date on any media center programs that are going on (book fair, banned book week, teen read week, etc.) Offer a link for parents to email the media specialist to volunteer. The web page can be a place for parents to see how plugged in their media specialist is with the classroom.

Features of Good Media Center Webpages

After reading the chapter and viewing some examples of media center webpages, I think that the following features would be ideal to include no matter the grade level:

*School and/or media center contact information (address, phone, email)
*Hours of operation
*Staff names (pictures would also be good)
*Media center mission statement
*Basic policies and procedures (maybe not the entire handbook, but parts such as checkout policies, media center rules, and either the information itself or links to the acceptable use policy and materials dealing with copyright and challenged materials)
*Links to reference sources, such as online dictionaries or thesauruses
*Information on citation of resources (or a link to a site that does it automatically with the correct information plugged in)
*Information on books, such as monthly features/themes or new arrivals
*Weblinks for sites that are educationally and developmentally appropriate for students within the school (these may need to be divided up for schools that cover many grade levels, or even for a P-5 school)
*The school’s online catalog
*Information, news, and upcoming events involving or hosted by the media center.

In addition, it’s also important that:
*All links are working and are updated as needed
*The page itself is attractive but not overwhelming with too many visuals or too much information
*Text is large enough to be easily read by those with visual impairments, and in fonts that are not overly fancy.
*Colors are arranged in ways that those with colorblindness can still read text

There are so many more features that can be included on a media center webpage, depending on the area and the ages of the students served, but these are some basic rules of thumb I carried away from my readings.

I really enjoyed visiting the different web sites for media centers and was surprised to see many that were actually wikis, and some not so much! Most of the web sites had access to wikis for specific tasks or class assignments, and I was glad to see that they were indeed protected.

For the most part, I liked all the websites that were easily accessible from link to link, but that also had a main menu to return to specific pages on each link that was accessed. These are typically the ones I like to call user friendly, but the sites that frustrated me were the ones that would let you access a wiki, but would take you away from the media center's pages or easy links. Some of the sites I found were a bit overwhelming with access to Facebook, twitter, and so forth. I do not understand why one would need access to all of these places if you had the information posted on a wiki site; it seemed as thought he same information was posted on all of these different mediums. Why does a school library need the wiki web site and a facebook page? I understand the podcasts, blogs,other teacher wikis and favorite websites being available on the wiki web page, but too much can be over kill.

I also liked the sites that had podcasts links for various reasons, whether they were for book lists, or class projects to be seen.

I liked the sites that had blogging about different topics, especially ones that were question oriented. Students and teachers could use them to ask specific questions and anyone who is invited can answer and respond; this way it is not always necessary for the media specialist to find all the answers. I liked the sites that had easy links to podcasts or slide shows on how to use equipment in the classrooms or labs, and I also liked the ones that had slide shows for student purposes as well. Some had videos on how to use a wiki, some had videos on how to use Galileo, and some had videos on how to cite different sources for research. The possibilites are endless and it continues to amaze me how much is available that is not being used.

Finally, I have to say that viewing all of these web sites excited me to think that high schools could eventually offer online courses to students. I would love to be a teacher or media specialist that could assist with online courses. Students would be better prepared for the type of classes they will be taking in college and more familiar with using online sources for school activities and projects. I'm not quite sure if this will happen in my career but it would be exciting because the media specialists would have the site that would be central to all courses and activities, making our job even more important!

Private Label Wikis- Dupree

As I was reading and reviewing other blogs about wikis I kept feeling insecure about the safety issue of using it with students, especially high scchool students. Many of them do not know how to use the internet appropriately and post ugly or mean things for everyone to see. However, I recently read about Wiki's private label where schools and business can pay yearly to have their own wiki communinty seperate from wiki spaces. It can be managed and rules of membership and conduct can be established. Another benefit is that since the teacher or administrator would be in full control, there is full control over the content that is posted and your firewall will be able to safely allow your site through.

The major down side to this was the yearly fee. In the state of education right now, there will not be any extra money for safe wiki sites.

I guess, as a teacher, I would find it very cumbersome to constantly be monitoring yet another classroom ( a virtual one). Behavior is a big deal and I still feel in more control within my four walls and am very weary of having to manage behavior outside those walls in the virtual world. I am still looking for teachers on the high school level who have had successful use of the wiki as a learning tool, especially with regular, college level kids...not honors or AP students, who typically do the "right" thing. I have no issues with these students and using the internet, but when it comes to the average high school student, I still feel it is going to become a behavior issue.

On another note, using wikis professionally and for media center web sites seems like a positive way to model appropriate interaction. I beleive the adult posting would set the standards for any comment made by a student, and it is a different environmant than that of a classroom.

Wiki Applications for Media Centers

As I see it, there are many valuable wiki applications which can be developed for the media center and for the school population as well. First of all, a wiki is a great format for developing projects using teacher and peer review. Students can write, edit, and submit assignments with teacher guidance. The wiki could also be made available for parent review as well. Group authoring, keeping track of group projects, and creating simple web-pages are other great applications. A wiki is a great choice for 4th and 5th grade students who need to set up web-pages for projects. In my opinion, a wiki is less cumbersome and complicated to set up than a student web-page. So, it's a great way to introduce them to this form of communication.

Another application is for teacher-wikis, as oppossed to teacher web-pages. It's just another communication option. My son's 6th grade challenge language arts teacher uses a wiki for parent communication. She lets us know when important projects are due, what's going on in the classroom, and other important information. We (parents) have the opporuntity to make comments, but she screens the comments before posting. I guess I would do the same......
The wiki is for us to "visit" her, whenever we feel, as opposed to her "visiting" us with continual e-mail blasts. She does send occassional e-mails to alert us when she's posted something new and relevant to her wiki. I really appreciate the effort she's making in keeping parents updated.

As a media specialist, I envision my role as assisting classroom teachers with setting up their own wikis as well.

The Media Center could have it's own wiki featuring links to information such as:
How to use OPAC
How to search Galileo
How to use equipment such as Flip and Digital Cameras
How to use the document camera
I would post links to important articles and resources meeting cirriculum and IB requirements

The possibilities are endless.....

Podcasting Advantages: The Way I See It

Using Podcasting in high schools is a great way to introduce students to appropriate use of media. Many times students have a difficult time filtering their personal life with their cyber life, and because this is such an issue throughout the world, even with adults posting too much personal information and getting fired for what they have said or posted on places such as Facebook, schools need to take the responsibility to teach students what is appropriate and innappropriate for the web. Just like English teachers do when they teach students the difference between formal writing and slang, classroom teachers need to take advantage of the opportunity to model appropriate use of technology; we can only do this if we teach, use, and follow up with our students. Students are motivated when learning involves technology and communication, so educators need to take every opportunity to use the technology available to increase the desire to learn. If podcasts make students feel like they have some freedom with how they accomplish their learning goals, then by all means a teacher should use it. If podcasting helps students get ideas from others to complete their learning goals, then by all means media specialists should make this available and a priority. We all know that the use of technology helps increase learning and test scores, and we should never forget that sometimes students learn better from their peers or other adults in the community.

I believe that podcassting can be a great tool to motivate and teach responsible use of technology. If I were a media specialist and a teacher approached me and was having difficulty getting her students to meet certain standards, I would most certainly suggest podcasting. There are so many different forms that podcasting can take, so it helps with differentiation and motivation. Students like the feeling of responsibilty and I believe that most of them would use it appropriately, especially if consequences are set upfront.

Some ways that I imagine that podcasting can be used have already been described in other postings, but the ones I really liked were the ones that let the students learn from each other: Group Research, Group projects, Communication with Community leaders or even professionals, evaluating different careers through podcasts, and students being able to see and communicate with real people doing great things (like scientists on location).

Needless to say, I believe that while podcsating is "hot," educators need to take the opportunity to teach internet responsibility and appropriate usage.

How I'll Use Podcasts as a Media Specialist

Podcasting is an effective way to personally distribute communications medium to a large scope of recipients. A great podcast application was that of a media specialist friend of mine, filming her Principal (with a flip camera), and creating a podcast on how the school was handling an expansion project. The podcast was downloaded onto the school's home web-page. It was a personal, effective, and informative way of communicating relevant information to the school community. The great benefit with this form of communication was that parents could watch and digest all of this information "at their own pace."

I envision using Podcasting in my media center and posting the content to my school's home page in order to introduce GA award books, post book fair information, give a guided tour of the media center, and to discuss the Accelerated Reader program. Actually, podcast applications for a media center are never-ending. A media specialist could not only be the advocate and post for the media center, but be the podcast rep. for the entire school, organizing grade level and teacher specific podcasts for the school's web-site. Teachers at my school view the media specialist as the technology specialist and would expect her help and support in creating podcasts. The school's administration expects and values this service as well.

My take on podcasting

My experience with podcasting thus far is the introductory podcast we created at the beginning of the semester and a brief half-day workshop I took for PLU credit about a year and a half ago. However, I believe it’s a great tool for media centers and schools in general, and would be very willing to help a teacher who wants to learn more do so (and learn a thing or two myself, I’m sure). Depending on the teacher’s knowledge of podcasting (does he/she have past experience, or does it just sound like a great idea?) I would help to conduct research (on equipment needed if the school did not already have it, purposes for which podcasting could be used in the school, any clearances we would need to make with the administration, district, or for fair use compliance) and setting up to actually create the podcast. I believe that aiding interested teachers in using and incorporating technologies into their practice is a vital role for the media specialist, and that it is my job and my purpose to help teachers to teach the best they can.

Some of the ways in which I think podcasting would be most useful and beneficial in an elementary setting include:
-Book talks (by students, teachers, the media specialist, or even authors).
-Guest speakers (community members, special guests, authors….this would be very useful for -speakers with tight schedules, because podcasts could be shared with the entire school or even -other schools, freeing the speaker to have a more relaxed visit).
-Media center tours (probably most useful with pictures or video included)
-Technology how-tos (similar to the networking videos in this course).
-Reader’s theater (students write and share ‘radio plays’, perhaps even including sound effects).

I’m really excited to explore the world of podcasting with both teachers and students, and to help both use this relatively new technology to bring more interactivity and shareability to educational experiences.