The WOW of Media Websites

Jurkowski states that close to 90 percent of school librarians maintain websites. The old question of whether to have a site is no longer the case, rather it is what features to use, and how to keep it organized and updated.
The library website is way of accessing electronic resources the library subscribes to as well as a way of finding print resources, sharing news and information, policies and other documents.
Walter Minkel recommends including links to teacher assignments, bibliographic aids, the library catalog, databases and local institutions such as museums, parks, zoos and their contact information. He warns that simply providing a list of links is not enough.
Guidelines for the creation of and maintenance of the school library website as reported by Anne Clyde, are
• Created by the library staff
• Created and managed by someone outside of the school
• Created by someone outside of the school but maintained by the library staff
• Created as part of the school website
• Created at the district level
• Created in part or whole by students.
Designing the look of a website is your first step. Keep in mind your audience. An elementary website will be much different from a high school website.
Also keep in mind Americans with Disabilities Act specifications. Simple things to note are alternate text for images for those with visual disabilities and include text with audio links for those with hearing impairments.
Jurkowski cited several Web editors such as Adobe Dreamweaver, and open-source options like Nvu or Mozilla SeaMonkey that can be used. (I always wanted a sea monkey….) Wikis can also be used to create the whole library website or a portion of it. This would give control as well as access for the librarian, however there would be limits to design and layout.
D. Warlick states that the goals of our job is assisting students in becoming successful learners and supporting teachers in their efforts to create meaningful learning experiences AND to do this within a contemporary information environment. That being said, there are several guidelines to get the most from your website. Determine how your target audience can help you accomplish your goals. If you want improved Accelerated Reader participation, include an interactive list of acceptable books. Perhaps even solicit book reviews from parents, students, or teachers. Posting an online curriculum map for the school may help teachers make better use of resources. This would accommodate issues of time and help you do your job in collaborating.
In your design, include varied media such as animation, sound music and maybe video. (hmmmm, podcast?) If you are posting complex information, include graphs.
When you are determining your layout, keep in mind these tips to make Web pages more printable:
• Indent the content.
• Keep paragraphs short.
• Bullet your lists.
• Use fonts wisely (instructions in a larger font perhaps)
• Create eye magnets. (Items that may be pondered include additional information in bold print.)
If you are interested in the return of visitors to your site, follow these guidelines;
• Put a section in the website that lists upcoming curriculum relevant programs with their time and channel.
• Have a holiday section with the latest gadgets and a comparison/review link.
• At the end of the year, include information about vacations.
The links and sites given on Course Den were phenomenal. No offense to my school, but wow! The elementary site (http://www.nobl.k12.in.us/North/NorthMedia/index.htm) was inviting and eye catching. It had some great links and was friendly. The middle school site (http://www.milton.k12.wi.us/schools/mms/website/library/MMS_LMC/Welcome.html) was equally attractive. There were some great links for skill enhancement and numerous resources. I like the math resources that were listed because it included skill areas that are often deficits but not part of middle school curriculum such as fractions. The high school site (https://sites.google.com/site/theunquietlibrary/) was really impressive. Within the social media presence were bookmarks for Delicious, their Blog, and many others. It received recognition from ALA Office for Information Technology Policy(OITP) (https://sites.google.com/site/theunquietlibrary/social-media-presence). The Delicious links were really comprehensive.

Wikis

Wikis.  Another tool I thought I hadn’t used.  I have used Wikipedia. I’ve also been telling my students about Wikileaks for months because it helped start the revolution in Tunisia which has snowballed across Africa.  I know we post links and materials to our WGA wiki pages.  Still, when I thought about a wiki, I still thought “static web page”. The interactive part of it was missing for me as I thought about collaboration and teachers.

I looked at all the recommended links for inspiration.  I liked learning that wiki actually means quick in Hawaiian.  Then, I just began searching and found a  video called, “Wikis in Plain English” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY) which made it so clear for me.  I realized that having a visual demonstration would be equally helpful to teachers and students as well. Now, I can see how useful this tool can be for collaboration.  I’ve been asked many times to “run down to my room” to evaluate a paper another teacher might be working on rather than sending the documents back and forth.  Our mail system can hang up and delay for hours some days.  I play email tag editing resumes and scholarship applications with my own college kids.  A wiki, where the page can be downloaded as a word document later, seems like a much better way to collaborate.

I learned that the biggest benefits of wiki pages are their ability to be huge, like Wikipedia.  There is plenty of room to add and expand. Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki (http://www.libsuccess.org/) is an enormous resource.   There are thousands of other wikis to find ready-made references.  Look at  http://www.wikiindex.org/.  The time saving from searching would be so useful.  Why not have teachers collaborate school-to-school on materials which support standards for their grade or subject?  It would be nice to share resources this way.  The benefit of being able to search categories and to reorganize your work as you need to makes it superior to a blog.

Media specialists could help bridge schools and teachers by helping compile resource lists.  In our media classes we’re encouraged to know what teachers need so we can pull materials.  Perhaps we need media specialists to view books and materials at other schools.  They could review materials check out the most each year to fill any resource gaps at their own schools.

I was surprised to learn that you can monitor changes made on a wiki.  This made me a lot more comfortable with the idea.  Even if a student messed up the page, it would be nice to identify the student, go back and take advantage of a teachable moment to not repeat it. The “Wiki in a K-12 Classroom” site gave the Science Fair example first.  My students just turned their Science Fair projects in on Friday.  It was difficult getting information on how I was supposed to do this at my school.  It would be nice to have a science fair collaboration so that we’re all on the same page with expectations for the county competition. Many students planned to work in a pairs and groups, but weren’t able to work out a way to collaborate.  Next year, I will know they can use wikispaces.com to make it possible. Parents could also stay informed with monitoring progress since anyone from any computer could have access to the wiki.

Students able to pull up their class work while in the media center would help clarify for the media specialist the assignment and progress of the students coming to work.  This would foster more collaboration with classroom teachers. I think the idea of having students give feedback on a book the class is reading would encourage students to read more thoughtfully knowing they were going to have to document their own thoughts. I think that teachers and the media specialist could collaborate on school-wide or multi-grade book readings, too.  Perhaps older students could create for younger classes.  This would foster collaboration across grade levels which my principal is now pushing.

My school has no electronic schedule.  The library schedule would be great online.  It would save me a long walk and valuable time.  The same issue occurs with our computer lab scheduling.  It would be very helpful if the media specialist set up an electronic wiki schedule to help teachers schedule and free up time quickly for everyone to see.

Finally, the ability to quickly update information made me think of our snow day cancellations.  I heard that there were schools in Ohio posting class work online so students could work at home and they count that toward a school day.

 (http://www.switched.com/2010/10/26/mississinawa-school-implements-online-snow-day-classes/ )  NC is considering the same (http://www.examiner.com/online-learning-in-raleigh/online-learning-options-for-snow-days)

Collaboration could continue this way using wikis.  Having all the materials available online takes away kids’ excuses of not having their books or materials with them and could save us all make up day hassles.

This is another tool that I will have to play with to actually get a handle on how best to use it in my school career.  I always feel I need more free time to play with it all.

Podcasts

To be completely honest with you, I just got an ipod for my birthday in October. So I have had a crash course in the past few months with itunes and the whole concept of podcasts. I have downloaded a few podcasts to itunes at school during the process of trying to create new units of study. I have not shown them to the kids and have not finished creating the unit of study. So when I was asked to create a podcast for this class, I was a little apprehensive. Once I got started, I really liked the ease of Camtasia and began to think of ways that I could use it in my classroom.
As I was reviewing the resources about podcasting I found that it is one of the fastest growing forms of information posted on the web. The fact that you can set up your itunes to automatically search and download new podcasts from a series is just amazing to me.
While I was reviewing how podcasts could be used educationally, I came across a few that were really inspiring to me. The first was Coulee Kids' Podcast. These were student created podcasts from a school in La Crosse, WI. There were a variety of subjects to choose from and since I enjoy science it was the subject I chose. In the podcast, the kids were learning about amphibians and their different systems. There were slides of the kids and their specimens as they were describing each part. It was so cool. You could hear the excitement in the kids voices as they spoke. It also made me realized that the kids really learned the information they were discussing. It wasn't just memorized for a short period of time. As a teacher, that is what you strive for in your student's learning. LEARNING, not memorization.
Another site that I really thought was great was the Grandview Library Storytelling site created by Grandview Library in Monsey, NY. She had an AWESOME media center web site and included podcasts of books based around themes. The only drawback was that she just had audio and her voice was not real exciting. It would have been really, really good had she added some pictures of the books as she was reading the excerpts from them. Even just the cover or first page would have been great. But just the fact that she has taken the time and the effort to use podcasting to promote books and reading was genius.
I also liked the A+podcast Rubric that was in our resources. I thought that it was easy to follow and that it could be easily adapted to for younger and older students to use. I think that I will use this as the basis for my rubric when I am creating my kit idea for my digital story. I want my students to research a famous building in America. We are currently working on a house design unit where they are learning about different types of architecture and buildings. I was going to have them create a power point but think this is a much cooler idea and one that they can share with their families.
I also really enjoyed reading about the grants that were available to schools for podcast equipment and use. It was promoted by Tool Factory & Olympus Grants. Teachers would submit their own podcasts for why they felt they deserved the grant. It was not a large amount of money but what I would have really liked as a teacher was the free site license and the fact that they used Camtasia. It was not the same version that we used in class to create our podcast, but it seemed a little more kid and teacher friendly. Some of the other items that came with the grant were digital voice recorders, mics, workstation subscriptions, and Tool Factory cd guides and books. It would be a great grant to help promote Web 2.0 and the 21st century classroom/media center.
I also thought the hosting information was very informative. It would probably be a huge help to the IT department if you stored your podcasts somewhere else other than on the server! I know ours can get clogged with photos and this would be a great safe place to store them, just in case the server decided not to work anymore. Most of the subscriptions were not expensive and could be purchased with media center funds or even via your PTA. I really liked the Tool Factory. They seemed to have thought of just about everything to help teachers, but it was also the most expensive.

wiki stuff

hey girls. I looked at some stuff on the wiki and put a message on the group 3 post. Do we put our names on the equipment stuff we are doing? It looked like that was what some other people did. Any way, take a look and change anything I might have done that doesn't look right. (who knows!) Got pictures today. Will start getting it together tomorrow. Luci, when do you want stuff by? (to put together)