January 5, 2011

1. List and describe 5 webpage features that you saw in tonight's presentations that you thought were interesting, engaging and should be included on a library media center webpage.

1. Layout - If a website is not made to "look" nice then people are turned off by it, so I think trying to limit the amount of text, include pictures, add color, etc. is important. I thought all of the websites presented had unique layouts, but they all were user friendly.
2. I thought the student book reviews that Katelyn did were great. It's a way to showcase books, but if students know that their review is online, they will be more likely to go and look at and then they may continue searching your website.
3.Online Catalog - I think it's important for students to have access to the books available to them at home as well as at school. Once again all the websites did this, but depending on the program it was slightly different
4.I think it is important to showcase some of the books you have. I liked both the rotating books as well as the shelfari that Brain had on his website.
5. Including a variety of resources. I loved Jenny's Web 2.0 page because there was a lot to choose from. I also liked Alyca resources because she broke them down by grade level for the students. I think there are a lot of ways to present resources and a large part of it depends on the school.

2. What questions or comments do you have about the 3-year plan? Remember it is due (with a short class presentation) in class next week.....our last meeting for this course.

I think all of my questions were answered last night.

3. List and describe 2 ways of evaluating your collection. What is collection mapping and why is it useful? Have we seen this before? Where? Are you using it or will you use it when you get your own library?

A collection can be evaluated by just looking at it. It is easy to tell which books are old or beaten up by looking. A collection can also be evaluated by using tools to find out how old each section is. Collection mapping is taking each section of books and breaking it down into the average age and also the number of books. We have seen this when the reps from Follett came in to show us Titlewave. I am currently using Titlewave and have been using it to figure out where I want to focus on in improving my library collection.

4. How have you built and developed your Personal/Professional Learning Network since we began our class? Describe specifically.

I am currently in the process of becoming a member of WEMTA and plan on going to the conference this March. I continue to collaborate with the librarians in my district on a monthly basis and with the high school librarian on a bi-weekly basis. At our last library meeting we decided that we wanted to start a Focus group of other librarians in the local area so that we could share ideas and see what other school districts doing. We are sending out invitation to about 18 school librarians next week and are planning on having our first meeting in February of this year. Our goal is to do this quarterly, but we need to see what the turn out is first. We are excited about this possibility of making connections with other librarians and ones that are close to us. Other than that I feel like our class is a PLN as well. It's a place that we can discuss what's going on each week if we need to.

(Louis Questions:)

How has our class and this week's activities effected you in your professional life? Discuss 2 things you have learned this week.

The activities from this week have helped in my professional life because I was able to see some neat items on the other students websites that I will try to incorporate in to mine. I also have looked at some of the articles that relate to promoting a library and have been trying to think of different things to do within my building. I'm planning on doing several different events during Read Across America Week and the articles have given me some great ideas.