Extra Time in the Media Center

• September 2008 - I started working with the media specialist and a team of technology students on the morning broadcast. We spend 10 minutes every morning broadcasting the morning anouncements and other important school news. My role: Broadcast advisor, laptop operator.
• January 13, 2009 - I spent 30 minutes preparing an MLK opening for the morning broadcast using Photostory.
• January 15, 2009 - I spent 1 hour creating a Barack Obama opening for the morning broadcast using Photostory which included pictures and quotes from Barack Obama.
• January 28, 2009 (3:30 - 3:40 pm) - I went over the 5 year plan for the library with the media specialist. She informed me that the district gives a template and she has the freedom to determine what areas of the library she will focus on for improvement year by year. 2008-2009 school year focuses are: social studies/history (900s), biography (b), fine arts (700s), and Accelerated Reader (AR) books. These focuses were determined based on teacher need as well as principal's request (AR books).
• February 23, 2009 - OBSERVATION - It saddens me that throughout the day as I have been going in the library, there is not much going on in the library. I have never seen anyone reading to children, I have never seen anyone checking out books, and only twice have I seen fifth grade classes conducting research. I just wanted to make note of this observation as I brainstorm about how we could get more people to use our school library.
• March 9, 2009 - Media specialist shared an email from APS media services. The email is a weekly update. Media specialists receive this email once a week. She informed me that the emails usually have helpful tidbits. This particular weekly email included the new GALILEO password, information about disgarded books being sent to Africa, advisement about attending a Promethean training, information about ordering periodicals, a substitute media specialist's contact information, the monthly checklist that needs to be completed, Barack Obama resources that can be used in the library, information about conferences, and information about grants (I will share this info. in the grant section of my blog). The email seems to be very informative and seems like a good way to help keep media specialists informed, organized, and in touch with each other.
• April 21, 2009 - The book fair will start tomorrow. Unfortunately, I was unable to help with setup of the book fair as I had hoped to do because of the CRCT. However, I browsed through the merchandise and found a lot of good books. I will try to get some time in to work with the book fair and see how everything works.
• May 5, 2009 - I spent 5 hours in a middle school library. The middle school media center runs totally different from the elementary media center. The schedule is more flexible and there is more activity in the media center throughout the day. There is one media specialist (the school has enough students for two [~2000 students]) and two paras. Teachers bring students in to do research for projects during different blocks of the day. The media specialist acts as a resource in helping students search for information, organize information, and print that information. It seems as if collaboration is a big part of the media school media center and that the primary role of the LMS is to collaborate with teachers to help students complete various types of projects. Beyond helping children, other tasks were similar to the elementary library. We analyzed a report and discovered a need for extensive weeding. A student assistant deleted some books that had already been weeded and we also reshelved some books. Observing the activity in the middle school media center was helpful because it allowed me to see how students need to be prepared when leaving elementary school.