Diversity In the Media Center

The purpose of the school library media center is that of support to the school’s mission statement and school improvement plan.  First, the budget must be considered.  Then look at what the requests made by the teachers that will support what is being done in the class room.  After that is done, I think most media specialists purchase what will appeal to the readers.  What are they asking for? 

Being a special education teacher, I can certainly understand the assistive technology needs by our students.  Often that is funded through a different source than the media center.  At my school, the exceptional education department has put a Kurzweil reader

in the media center.  Students are given instruction on how to use it and may do so at any time. 

For our visually impaired students materials are provided for them through a different budget. 

Diversity in the Media Center

Diversity in the media center is having the resources and support systems in place to help all students in the media center - no matter their race, gender, culture, language, or learning difficulties. I think that this concept is actually very difficult for a media center to accomplish. We need to have a wide range of resources for our students, including books on many different reading levels, technology that can assist students with sensory disabilities/difficulties, and resources that can used in different languages. What a media center needs and what a media center can get are two different things. It is difficult to rationalize spending the small budget we have on items that may only help one or two students, when we could spend the money for items that more students could use. I think what we have to remember is that without special resources, some of our students would not be able to use the media center at all. As a media specialist, it is important to remember that we need to make sure all our students are being served by the media center - we have to learn how to balance what a special population of our school needs and what the majority of the population of our school needs.

As media specialists, we should always encourage our students to find and discover information about what different people think and feel. We need to provide our students with a variety of resources that will enable them to form their own opinions and perspectives, while still appreciating and tolerating what others think and feel. I think that my school attempts to provide resources for our diverse group of students, but I know that we need to offer more to our students that speak other languages and to our students that may read on much lower levels than our general population. I also feel that my school tries to teach students how to look at problems and issues in the world from different perspectives, but in middle school this can be hard to get in the system because middle schoolers are, in general, pretty self-involved. I think we need to give our students the opportunity to learn in different ways and learn about different lifestyles than their own and help teach them acceptance and tolerance along the way!

Digital Storytelling & eBooks

First let me say that I am a special education teacher who co-teaches with the history department.  I have always thought that to be a good history teacher, you must be a great story teller.  Digital storytelling offers a different way to do just that!
Digital storytelling could be used to open a unit or to close it.  It might be used to highlight keys events.  The students in your class could be assigned the task of creating the digital story.  That would provide them with opportunity to practice research skills such as collecting and analyzing information and then putting the data in a useful format.  Students also practice communication skills.  They learn how to ask the correct questions to get the information they need.  They learn how to write stories for the audience they are addressing.  Digital storytelling also presents an opportunity for students to improve their computer skills.  No matter if you are a beginner or someone with advanced computer skills, there is a job for everyone to do and new skills to learn!
Using digital storytelling provides yet another way to persent the information.  The material is presented in an interactive manner which "draws" the students in and increases the students attention to the lesson.
The University of Houston's Digital Storytelling website is awesome!  It is a great resource for audio and video questions as well as copyright information and so much more!  It is a resource to go to as we complete our digital story assignment.
The media center at my school does not offer ebooks.  The only electronic reference that is offered is GALILEO.  We offered an electronic encyclopedia at one time, but have since discontinued the service.
I think ebooks will have a role in the future at my school.  As the students mature, they may like having the ebooks more so than the actucal book.  The faculty would appreciate having ebooks available for checkout at the school media center rather than having to order them or going to the public library.  eBooks are slow to take off at school, but the future is coming fast!

Technology Training

The technology skills of the teachers and staff at my school are varied, but overall limited. While most of our teachers are younger and up on the current options and tools out there, we work in a school where there is not a huge emphasis put on technology. We are applauded by the administration when it is used, but it is not a big focus of our principal. Teachers use what they are comfortable with, so introduction of new tools is very important. As a faculty, we all use the internet as a teaching tool and Brain Pop is a big favorite of all the teachers right now.  We also just got our first Promethean board in the computer lab this year, so it is catching on slowly but surely. Our media specialist does a good job providing technology training to teacher who are interested. Instead of it being a mandatory staff development, she does an optional technology training at the beginning of each year. It is mandatory for any new teachers to the school, but not for all staff. While I think this is wonderful, you end up seeing the same faces year after year and those tend to be the teachers who are already using the available technology in their classrooms. 


The problem with technology training is much like the problem with any kind of training... no time! Teachers are stretched so thin right now. Our professional learning days have been converted into furlough days, so any kind of training has to be done after school when teachers are tired, talkative, and have other concerns they put before the training. If I were the media specialist at a school like mine, I would suggest a "technology spotlight" at each faculty meeting. This would be a quick introduction to a tool or helpful site. The focus could point out helpful and practical applications in the classroom. If the tools were still not being utilized, I may even offer a small prize (like a jeans pass) for teachers who used the tool in that next week. I know it is hard to break the habits of some teachers, but it may help to expose some staff to the tools and they may end up loving them!


My DO's for technology training:

• Do show the staff how the tool or site will make their job easier or cause them to be more effective.
• Do have all teaching staff attend some sort of training, not just a study group.
• Show your administration the benefits of the technology, you need their support!

My DON'T's for technology training:

• Don't overwhelm the faculty with a lot of new things at one time.
• Don't introduce something geared for a certain grade range to teachers who do not teach that group, no matter how cool the tool.
• Don't shy away from technology training because it is something else added to your overflowing plate, embrace it and make it fun!

School TV News

While school news is something my principal is interested in having at some point in the future, we do not have it currently.  So for this assignment I spoke with Ginny Walker, the media specialist at a local elementary school.  Mrs. Walker daid a news broadcast is aired daily.  Fourth and fifth graders are involved in the broadcast.  The students are selected based on teacher recommendation and tryout.  The students anchor the live broadcast on a rotation schedule.  They use a powerpoint as the script which is updated daily.  At times the powerpoint is shown and not the anchors.  The students do special interviews and spotlights on teachers and students. The show commericals that have been pre-recorded or a CD for a fund-raiser.  Daily features include a joke of the day, character education, school song, lunch menu, class perfect attendance, regular announcements and special announcements.

The broadcast sponsors are non-homeroom teachers, who teach extension and discovery.  They rotate also with the students.

Social Networking

According to a news release from the American Library Association

(

http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2008/june2008/AASLsurvey.cfm)

"The data is a powerful indicator that social networking tools are becoming more and more vital in a student's education," said AASL President Sara Kelly Johns. "Group collaboration and discussion are becoming more evident in the learning process. These processes create a community of learners where a student can help lead the educational process."

The data mentioned here is in the news release; it indicated that media specialists and schools in general are leaning towards using social networking as a part of the educational process.

I think that social networking is something needs to be encouraged and monitored by the school system. If we can teach students how to use the social networking sites properly and safely maybe we could guard against things like cyber bullying. Part of our job as media specialists should be to teach the students how to properly network online. It is one of the new ways to communicate and share information - it is an important tool to learn.

My school uses the Follett Destiny system, which does allow for some monitored social networking - students can share book reviews and book suggestions with one another and can "friend" each other on the system. If schools can find other safe ways to social network like this, we could help our students learn how to collaborate appropriately on the internet.

Social networking to any extend could be useful in the school system - I know that some school systems have emails and calendars available for the students and teachers to communicate easily. This seems like a good way to begin social networking as a school - the idea is to share information easily with each other. It would be so much easier to be able to send an email or message to my students to communicate ideas, then to have to wait till when I see them later. The other important use of social networking is that students would be leading their own education. I think that many of us could witness, through experiencing our online classes, that we do take a large role in how our classmates receive and perceive information. If our students could have that experience outside of the classroom, the possibilities could be endless!

As media specialists and instructional technologists, I think we will see more and more about social networking in the coming years. We will be expected to incorporate it into our standards - it certainly helps meet the 21st Century standards through collaboration. We may as well jump on the bandwagon and find a safe and secure way to allow social networking at our schools!

Media Center Websites

I think the best thing about a media center webpage is that you really can’t do something wrong on the page! A media center webpage is all about giving information and providing ways to obtain information. Whether your page simply gives the basics about your MC or gives resources for every grade level and subject level, you need to concentrate on trying to help your students, parents, and teachers find the information they need.

The things that I like to see on Media Center pages include links to resources, information about upcoming events, pictures of the media center, and policies and guides specific to the students and the media center. One of the sample pages we looked at, Milton Middle School: http://www.milton.k12.wi.us/schools/mms/website/library/MMS_LMC/Welcome.html did a particularly good job of appealing to the age group of students – it looked like something a middle schooler would want to look at and use. The website included many links and guides that would be helpful in class and outside of class. I could see students using this website as the first stop for research. It also had a good section for teachers to use. The only problems I encountered on this site were broken links; I was reminded that it is a tough job to continually keep webpages updated because the internet can change daily. We have to make sure we maintain all of our links.

On the other LMC webpages, I saw a little less information, but saw things that made me think about we can use webpages. The media center webpage at North Elementary School (http://www.nobl.k12.in.us/North/NorthMedia/index.htm) had some awesome links to various blogs that students and teachers were utilizing. I thought this was a great way to link both a webpage and an interactive site. When checking out the website for Creekside High School (https://sites.google.com/site/theunquietlibrary/), I was impressed by the research that had obviously been done concerning making the media center a technological hub. I was very interested in their program goals that were available on the website. It was a true example of the way the media center should be moving in.

I enjoyed looking at the information concerning the different media center webpages; there are so many different things that can be done on a webpage for the students – it all depends on the effort you are willing to put forth. The only rule I would impose is to keep the information organized and make sure the website is accessible and easy to use!