In this new age of the Internet, school libraries are no longer a place where the media specialist can spend her day browsing quietly among her books. The media center has now become so intergrated with supporting school curriculm that it is considered an extension of the classroom. The Internet contains a plethora of information waiting at the researcher's fingertips to be accessed and utilized. A media center web site is the logical location for providing access to this information.
Media center web sites should contain information about the school such as mission statements, names of personnel, e-mail addresses, and hours of operation. Yet, it should also go beyond that to include links to informational web sites for research, book reviews, homework helpers, library and community news as well as other useful and important information. Like the hub of a wheel, the media center web site is the center of the information spiral that radiates throughout the school. This web site should be available to teachers, students, parents, and adminstration.
Good ideas, but where does a media specialist find the time to design, write, research and publish such a site? The idea can at times seem daunting and fearsome. Researching the internet to find research resources is time consuming and tedious. Designing a web site that is functional and useful is challenging and downright scary. Yet, many media specialist meet this challenge each day with fortitude and skill.
In addition to basic information about the school and the media center, the web site should provide links to web site resources for teachers and students. Student need web sites that will provide factual information for research. These sites need to be updated regularly and be user friendly. Informational web sites also need to be appropriate for the grade levels within the school. Teachers could benefit from having links to web sites that contain ideas for lesson plans, projects, and professional articles.
However, media center web sites should not promote entirely promote research over reading for pleasure. Links should also be included that present sites for book reviews, ebooks, interactive games, and book lists. The list is endless.
While doing some reading on the subject of media center web sites, I came across some information about some web sites that centralize resources for librarians, teachers and students. Some of these web sites are:
School Library Web Directory (www.sldirectory.com) This site contains a lot for teachers and librarians by providing links to many other sites. A subcategory of this site www.sldirectory.com/libsf/resf/wpages.html provides links to media center web sites all over the world and is very interesting to browse through.
Librarians Index to the Internet (Ill.org) also provides many resources for librarians to link to.
For students there are also a number of interesting and informative sites such as :
Kids Click
Yahooligans
Ask Jeeves for Kids
Utilizing and linking through these sources, might make seemingly overwhelming task of reseach a little easier for the busy media specialist.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wiki's are a technology that have been around for a while. Until I enrolled in this class, I never realized how wiki's are used all the time on the internet. I've often wondered why our internet filter blocks them and once I realized that a wiki could be changed by anyone I have a better understanding.
I can see why the internet filters would prevent students doing research from being able to access information that could be inaccurate based on who posted it and who changed it.
Wiki's have many benefits as well. I think that today teacher meeting time is limited and that the use of wiki's would allow teachers from all over a school, district, state, or country the ability to vent, discuss, and collaborate together with other teachers dealing with the same problems, curriculum, and mandates. Teachers often have common issues and new fresh ideas could be shared on wiki's to help alleviate their stress.
The use of wiki's in a school among students is not necessarily the best idea. It would have benefits but if students have the ability to change the postings of others it could lead to a great deal of problems.
I can see why the internet filters would prevent students doing research from being able to access information that could be inaccurate based on who posted it and who changed it.
Wiki's have many benefits as well. I think that today teacher meeting time is limited and that the use of wiki's would allow teachers from all over a school, district, state, or country the ability to vent, discuss, and collaborate together with other teachers dealing with the same problems, curriculum, and mandates. Teachers often have common issues and new fresh ideas could be shared on wiki's to help alleviate their stress.
The use of wiki's in a school among students is not necessarily the best idea. It would have benefits but if students have the ability to change the postings of others it could lead to a great deal of problems.
Wikis
I like the benefits that Wikis have to offer students in the 21st century. Students can complete their work and integrate it with technology at the same time. I love the flexibility that it offers. Students can access it at school or at home, assuming they have a computer at home. Parents can oversee the project and perhaps learn something new about technology at the same time. This will make the parents better able to help their child or children in the future. Teachers could even post a "How to use a Wiki" tutorial on their page. This will assist students and parents with technical problems. It will help them in completing a project instead of getting stranded in the middle of an assignment because they forgot how to use the Wiki.
As a media specialist, I would hold a "Get to Know Wikis" session for teachers. I would work with the teachers, help them set up their class Wikis, and discuss how and why to use them in their classroom. I would hold this in the computer lab so that all teachers would have a computer to work on. These sessions could be held during team planning meetings. Each grade level may have a slightly different purpose for their Wikis depending on what curriculum area they wish to focus on.
I also think that Wikis could be used for weekly team planning. "Collaboration" is a huge buzz word in my county. We write lesson plans together and have the same daily schedule. Wikis could prove to be a big asset for teachers who collaborate in this manner. Since one of the benefits of Wikis is that they are accessible from any computer, team members could add information to it at their leisure instead of limiting their contribution to school hours.
Since one of the goals of collaboration is to improve instruction Wikis have a multitude of different ways to achieve this at each grade level. I see great potential for Wikis in the school system in the future.
As a media specialist, I would hold a "Get to Know Wikis" session for teachers. I would work with the teachers, help them set up their class Wikis, and discuss how and why to use them in their classroom. I would hold this in the computer lab so that all teachers would have a computer to work on. These sessions could be held during team planning meetings. Each grade level may have a slightly different purpose for their Wikis depending on what curriculum area they wish to focus on.
I also think that Wikis could be used for weekly team planning. "Collaboration" is a huge buzz word in my county. We write lesson plans together and have the same daily schedule. Wikis could prove to be a big asset for teachers who collaborate in this manner. Since one of the benefits of Wikis is that they are accessible from any computer, team members could add information to it at their leisure instead of limiting their contribution to school hours.
Since one of the goals of collaboration is to improve instruction Wikis have a multitude of different ways to achieve this at each grade level. I see great potential for Wikis in the school system in the future.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Podcasting
I would love to have the opportunity to share podcasting with other faculty members. Podcasting can be a tremendous asset to teachers if they play with it and learn the many potential benefits it has to offer. Another advantage to instructing teachers about podcasting is that it can be shared with students. Students could use this in many ways. One major benefit directly related to the media specialists in my county would be helping students to use this to compete in the media festival. In my county the media specialists are highly encouraged to promote this at our individual schools. Students who are often more likely to be comfortable with new technology than most of us adults would most likely find podcasting highly engaging and find many new and clever ways to utilize the benefits. I think that the more faculty that you share podcasting with the more students who will learn about it. This will open up unlimited possibilities using podcasting within your school community.
Podcasting October 25, 2008
If a teacher were to come to me and ask for help setting up a podcast I would discuss with him/her what they had in mind for their project. I would explain that although I have limited experience is podcasting, I would be happy to explore it with them. I think it would be a terrific project and one where we could learn together. The first thing I would do with the teacher would be to give them an article on podcasting to acquaint them with the topic and also refer them to WilloWeb so they might see how others have used podcasting . That might help them define exactly what they wanted to do when we got together.
The article in Library 2.0 gave many terrific ideas about how to use podcasting. I love the idea of a weekly podcast explaining all the thing happening in the media center. I could talk about new book and material arrivals, special events, and exhibits such as science projects on display. Podcasts are a great way to deliver Book Talks, media center tours, book reviews, and lectures on a specific topic. Podcasts could also be made of speakers which could be shown to students who were absent or who wanted to review the information. Students could make podcasts on a wide variety of topics. There are an almost unlimited number of ways podcasts could be used to make education more fun and technically challenging for students.
The article in Library 2.0 gave many terrific ideas about how to use podcasting. I love the idea of a weekly podcast explaining all the thing happening in the media center. I could talk about new book and material arrivals, special events, and exhibits such as science projects on display. Podcasts are a great way to deliver Book Talks, media center tours, book reviews, and lectures on a specific topic. Podcasts could also be made of speakers which could be shown to students who were absent or who wanted to review the information. Students could make podcasts on a wide variety of topics. There are an almost unlimited number of ways podcasts could be used to make education more fun and technically challenging for students.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and risks of Wikis?
Before this class I had never participated or even thought about wikis. I knew of Wikipedia, and that was the extent of my knowledge. I have learned a lot about what wikis are intended for after reading the class text, Library 2.0, and looking at examples online. I am a little surprised to see that these collaborative tools are not as extensively being used as I expected to find. There are some great things going on, but Wikis hold much more potential for the classroom, for the media center, and in instructional design. However, without commitment from participants, wikis cannot be anything more than an empty online filing cabinet.
Wikis offer a plethora of opportunities for collaboration and shared knowledge exploration. Classrooms can use them for student portfolios and assignments. Media centers can have students add information on book talks and reviews as well as participate in Literature Circles and other forms of shared inquiry. Teachers and the media specialist can collaborate on instructional design and the planning of lessons. Wikis also offer a common ground for teachers, students, administration, and the media specialist to lend support and novel ideas to the school’s education community.
One of the greatest benefits that I can see ion a wiki is that it offers students and teachers asynchronous communication. This may sound like a bad thing, but for many people asynchronous communication allows them time to think about their ideas and refine what they have to say. Students and teachers are often forced to work quickly with little time for thoughts and reflections. A wiki allows users more time to compose themselves. This could lead to deeper, more abstract thinking and truly novel ideas. Wikis would only be limited by the imaginations of the monitors and community of users.
The fact that wikis are only limited by the users can also be a drawback. What if users do not commit to adding information or trying to keep the wiki updated. Students can be required to make posts and add information, but requiring teachers to do anything often leads to resentment, which may hurt the integrity of the wiki and its information. Questions pop up like: How do you get a commitment from the school community? Also, how does one show the teachers and staff that a wiki is useful and can be beneficial? These are difficult problems, but realistic ones if a media specialist plans to truly integrate the use of wikis in his or her school.
Wikis offer a plethora of opportunities for collaboration and shared knowledge exploration. Classrooms can use them for student portfolios and assignments. Media centers can have students add information on book talks and reviews as well as participate in Literature Circles and other forms of shared inquiry. Teachers and the media specialist can collaborate on instructional design and the planning of lessons. Wikis also offer a common ground for teachers, students, administration, and the media specialist to lend support and novel ideas to the school’s education community.
One of the greatest benefits that I can see ion a wiki is that it offers students and teachers asynchronous communication. This may sound like a bad thing, but for many people asynchronous communication allows them time to think about their ideas and refine what they have to say. Students and teachers are often forced to work quickly with little time for thoughts and reflections. A wiki allows users more time to compose themselves. This could lead to deeper, more abstract thinking and truly novel ideas. Wikis would only be limited by the imaginations of the monitors and community of users.
The fact that wikis are only limited by the users can also be a drawback. What if users do not commit to adding information or trying to keep the wiki updated. Students can be required to make posts and add information, but requiring teachers to do anything often leads to resentment, which may hurt the integrity of the wiki and its information. Questions pop up like: How do you get a commitment from the school community? Also, how does one show the teachers and staff that a wiki is useful and can be beneficial? These are difficult problems, but realistic ones if a media specialist plans to truly integrate the use of wikis in his or her school.
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