Day 19

Today was a busy day.  We had several technology issues to help with as well as the filming of a Mystery Skype.  I am very excited to try this with students from my own school.  What a great way to have them connect with others while learning at the same time.  While the activity did not go as planned, the classroom teacher was able to give an overview for other classes and teachers.  What I learned from this is that it is always good to do a trial run before you have a whole room full of students and teachers.

Also today, I learned that the issues in this school are quite similar to those in my own school.  People don't always follow rules/directions.  People also have high expectations for their school media specialist.  My hope is to be the most supportive person that I can be while also holding to rules and procedures.

Day 18

Today we looked to the end of my internship as we discussed evaluation of the library program as well as collecting data regarding collaboration and student programming.  This is not something that is widely used in this school district.  WHile we complete a yearly survey for the state department of education, rarely do we conduct evaluations of our particular programs.  For the purposes of my internship requirements, we discussed ways to do this.  One easy way seems to be through a survey...specifically through Survey Monkey.  These can be easily shared, and information is collected and tallied for you.  Then analyzing results is easy.  As for evaluating collaborations and/or student projects, we decided that use of a rubric would be beneficial.  Both teachers and students can quickly evaluate the lesson upon completion.  The only drawback here is that data will have to be manually collected and calculated.  In the future, I plan to develop an online survey geared specifically toward my library program to be administered yearly.  Feedback from users is critical in developing a program that best benefits a community.

Day 17

Budgets...I think I have mentioned this before, but now that I am right in the middle of a spending deadline, let's revisit.  Each year I am given funds for books, supplies, technology, and periodicals.  This money has to be spent each year by the end of March...yes, I procrastinate.  I guess I don't want to spend all of my money early, just in case something comes up that I need.  However, having significant funds to spend in an ethical and practical manner at the last minute is tough.  My plan for next year is to do a better job of ordering early the things I know we need.  I also plan to have a folder for each account and a running record of what is spent on the outside with copies of receipts, POs, etc. inside.  This way I can easily see how funds were spent in previous years.  I hope to save precious time and alleviate stress with this process.  Thanks so much to my mentor for this tip!

Day 16

Collaboration with Classroom Teachers...

This can be tricky business as teachers are so busy and overwhelmed by day-to-day requirements.  From lesson plans, to team meetings and parent communication, teachers have very little time to meet and talk with the media specialist about possible collaborations.  What I have learned is to make it as painless as I can while still encouraging communication.  One thing I do is email a group or an individual with an idea of how I can support learning.  This allows teachers to repond in their own time, and I have found it useful.  Another strategy that works is to pop in on meetings that are already scheduled.  Since teachers have to be there anyway, taking 5-10 minutes maybe once a month is not too much.  For example, teachers at my school already meet with the reading coach every Wednesday, so I can easily ask for a few minutes once a month.  This can open up dialogue with a whole team about ways I can support what they are already doing.  One final thing I have tried this year is to develop lessons for those required things that come up during the year such as Constitution Day, Black History Month, etc.  I can plan lessons that the teachers can write into their plans without doing anything extra.  They love this!  My goal is to be a support for teachers and students.  Collaboration is one of my main responsibilities, so I want to use it as a help rather thatn "one more thing to do."

Day 15

Teacher Web Pages...another necessary evil.  We have been working some each visit on helping teachers get their webpages updated and shared correctly.  This is not only a school requirement, but also a district requirement.  What I have learned is that some teachers are really eager and excited to work on a web page while others are completely evasive.  We have been trying for at least two weeks to get together with one teacher to help get her site up.  We have a quick cheat sheet and have promised to have her finished in fifteen minutes, but the teacher always has an excuse when it is time to meet.  I am unsure how to handle this situation as it is the media specialist's job to make sure everyone has an up-to-date site.  On one hand, you want to help get it done, but n the other hand you have offered several opportunities for assistance, and the site is not even started.  At this point, I feel that it is an administrative issue. I am sure that I will face similar situations in my own library, and I want to try to be a support for teachers while ensuring that tasks are complete.  I think the key is to be helpful but firm.  This won't be easy for a passive person like myself.

Day 14

Substitute Plans...not fun but necessary.  Today we discussed the need for detailed substitute plans as my mentor plans for the SCASL conference in a few weeks.  As we reviewed her standard lesson plans together, I thought about my own sub plans.  At my school we are required to have at least three days of emergency plans plus schedule, class lists, procedures, etc.  I have a sub notebook on my desk ready to go.  Feeling pretty good about them, I wasn't expecting to learn anything new.  However, I had not thought about what would happen if neither my assistant nor myself were in the library.  This changes plans, especially if the sub is someone completely new, as was the case with my mentor.  Directions and explanations have to be very clear and detailed for someone who has never been in your school or library.  After our work together today, I revised my own sub plans to be more detailed and clear.

Day 13

SC Book Awards...today I shared my voting booth with the students at HSES.  They were so excited to cast their votes.  We briefly reviewed each title and allowed students to come up one by one to fill in a ballot and drop it in the ballot box.  I left the booth for other classes to vote throughout the week.  The school winner will be announced once all votes are cast.

This activity brought up thoughts about next year's nominees and how to get more students to read them, especially in grades 3-5.  This year I did book talks in the library as students came in with their class.  This was only those whose teacher signed up for the visit.  Next year I plan to visit all 3-5 classrooms to briefly share titles.  I may even share a quick video highlighting the titles.  I also want to plan some type of event/party/celebration for those who read at least five titles to come vote.

Day 12

Book orders are hard work!  You would think spending $5000 on new books would be so easy, but that is not the case.  I learned today that our district has a policy requiring us to consider book reviews before ordering materials for the library.  Having ordered from a variety of book companies myself, I was curious to learn my mentor's perspective on this topic.  The first thing she showed me was School Library Journal.  Here we found recommendations for top books of the year. This was a great starting place.  Another source she suggested was ALA's award lists.  Next, she showed me a great feature that Follett offers through Titlewise...they have reviews collected within the program for titles they sell.  They also show you titles already in your collection.  This was so helpful as I chose new titles!  Another concern I have is ordering books that will last...strong covers and bindings.  My mentor was able to give her opinion and share her experiences with this issue.  Today was a great learning day, and I will definitely be able to use these new strategies right away.

Day 11

Today was a busy but productive day.  The majority of our time was spent working with Titlewise to analyze weaknesses in the collection.  We used the report provided by Follett to determine aged titles as well as circulation statistics for those to be considered for weeding.  My mentor knows her collection and is very careful about weeding.  She wants to keep books that her users still ask for even though they may be many years old.  She showed me how to check Destiny for how many times a book has been checked out in a certain time period, in this case the last ten years.  We actually took the laptop with us to the shelves so that we could look at the books as we went.  By the end of the day, we selected about 100 or so books for weeding.  Her overall collection year came up from 2003 to 2004, which is closer to the goal of 2005.  I learned that weeding is not always the easiest thing to do.  Careful considerations must be made before just pulling a book from the collection.