Checklist Item 4 - Cataloging

Cataloging is a very important aspect of the library media center.  It is vital that all materials and equipment be cataloged and placed into the Destiny system so they can be monitored and accounted for.  My direct media specialist Ms. Peters is very detailed with anything she puts into the Destiny system.  She has shown me the way that she does it and she has let me know the reasons for being so detailed when putting material into the system.  Her collection grades out at 98% and she is very proud of that.  Cataloging is not that difficult on most items, it just takes practice.  Many items have MARC records that come from vendors and that is fine, but Ms. Peters always adds things to the MARC record that she likes.  Non fiction is the most challenging of the books that I logged because you have to have some extras put into the MARC records so that it makes it easy for students to find information.  Most of the non fiction did not take a lot of time at all. Overall I am still learning but I am making progress!

Reflection - Media Blog Week of 10/13 - 10/17

The Camden Middle School library had a big week this week.  Our book fair started on Thursday and runs through next week.  There has been a lot of preparation for this event.  Getting volunteers together, having students make posters, moving tables and equipment around.  The book fair looks great!  See for your self!

Aside from the book fair I visited Mary Lee Clark Elementary School this week.  The media specialist there is Ms. Ardith Sweatt.  I have mentioned in earlier posts about how different the high school was and there was no exception here.  The elementary media center was vastly different than what I am used to in Middle School.  It was a great experience though.  I set up a cart of Chrome books for the media specialist and I sorted sections of books for her.  Elementary students will just put books back on the shelves without thinking about where they are supposed to go.  Ms. Sweatt also had me catalog some books for her as seen in one of the pictures.  We discussed having a reading area for elementary students and her use of a daily announcement center where kids do live broadcasts daily.  This was a neat experience for me.   Below are some pictures of my experience at Mary Lee Clark Elementary School media center.

Checklist Item 10 - Webinar

I chose to sign up with edWeb because it is a great PLN resource!  After signing in and looking around the webinar that caught my eye was Pitching the Library: How to Explain What School Librarians Do.  The webinar was presented by Michelle Luhtalu.  She is the Head Librarian at New Canaan High School in Connecticut.   This was a great webinar that explained how we as library media specialist can market what we do on a daily basis.  The number one thing that we do is that we help students learn!  It is also very important that we are able to demonstrate this.  Ms. Luhtalu went on to discuss areas of leadership, information specialist role, open access, voluteers, getting students involved, and grants.  She also emphasized the importance of documenting the evidence of what you do and she provided ways that she documents this in her own library.  Overall this was a very informative session that provided me with a lot of ideas to use in the Camden Middle School library.  I clearly see now that these webinars are a great way to increase professional learning and keep the media center up to date on all aspects of what we do.

In case you are interested, here is a link to view the webinar:  http://home.edweb.net/pitching-library-explain-school-librarians/

Reflection - Media Blog Week of 10/6 - 10/10

Hello again!  This week I continued processing all of the new Language Arts novel sets.  Packaging them for delivery and putting on all of the bar codes that are necessary for Destiny.  It really is amazing all that Ms. Peters has to keep up with!  We had a lady come in today and ask to be a volunteer.  Ms. Peters was ecstatic!  Our media center relies heavily on volunteers as she only has one paraprofessional to help her.  Keep in mind we have 1100 students in the school with only one media specialist.  We also had a school level media meeting.  Discussed were the book fair and Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl.  Ms. Peters is in the process of organizing these two events, getting volunteers ready and all the other stuff that she must do for this.  I was able to sit in and listen to the discussion of what will take place in the coming weeks.  Ms. Peters also went over financial reports with me and instructed me on how she handles the budget and money that comes into the media center.  This is important with the book fair coming up because it is a big fundraiser for our media center.  Besides all of this, I helped our with all regular duties in the library.  I also had my site visit with Dr. Green and it went well.  There is so much to do but I had a nice visit and it seems like I am on track!  I am continuing to learn and gain confidence!
I forgot to mention that each week now I am spending time at the high school media center as well.  Ms. Whitetree has shown me how to catalog items in Destiny as well and I helped her process about a dozen books.  The high school is a very different atmosphere than the middle school because of the maturity level of the students.  Different but in a good way!  See you next week.

Checklist Item 9 - PLN - RebelMouse

For my PLN I use RebelMouse and I would recommend this app to anyone who wishes to create a personal learning network.  While Twitter is great, RebelMouse is so much more powerful because of its ability to pull information from so many different sources.  I have Twitter, Linkedin, Blogs, RSS feeds, Tumblr, Flickr, and many other sources feeding into my RebelMouse PLN.  The PLN keeps me up to date with all sorts of topics that I need to know about such as science, media, technology, education, and some personal fun stuff for entertainment.  I have really enjoyed using this app!

Reflection - Media Blog Week of 9/29 - 10/3

This week I continued in the media center at Camden Middle School working with Ms. Peters.  We are working to come up with a virtual bulletin board for kids to use to review books they might want to read.  We are looking at using a program called Aurasma which allows a virtual component to be placed into a picture.  You then can embed video or pictures of what you want to display.  It really is a neat app!  Ms. Peters has begun to show me how to Catalog items in Destiny.  She is very meticulous and after doing a couple of books I fully understand why.  We have to get the books logged in correctly so that we can find the material when we need it.  We installed two new touch screen displays at the circulation desk.  This will make things so much easier for the media specialist at the desk when checking things in and out!  They are really cool!  I helped the para pro MS. Lynn re-shelve a lot of books this week and I also worked helping students who were doing research at the computers find information that they needed for a project.  I continue to learn and grow as a professional!

Reflection - Media Blog Week of 9/22 - 9/25

This week in our school media center I have been keeping up with the various jobs that Ms. Peters has to do.  Helping teachers with technology in the classroom, working the circulation desk, and preparing for the book fair.  This has been a very busy week!  In addition to all of this, we have been put in charge of the Language Arts novel sets.  At this time we are processing all of these books and putting them into Destiny.  I have been placing the books in storage bins and putting all the necessary bar codes on them for inventory purposes.  When that is finished, I deliver them to the appropriate classrooms.
I also visited the high school this week and worked with my other media specialist Ms. Whitetree.  The high school is very different than our middle school and it was interesting to see.  The media specialist also have different tasks over there than we do at the middle school level.  Some different things included making ID badges, study hall, bus passes and late to class slips.  They also handle any Chromebook issues for repair. Being able to compare/contrast the two media centers was very insightful!  Until next week take care.

Reflection - Media Blog Week of 9/15 - 9/19

Hello and welcome back!  This week I worked the circulation desk checking books in and out while helping students with various things.  The media center kind of works in waves as students change classes so the desk gets very busy at times.  I do enjoy the interaction with the students at the desk.  Ms. Peters discussed the book fair and went over what to expect with the book fair along with the type responsibilities that she has.  We also talked about the upcoming Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl and her duties and responsibilites for that event as well.  On the tech side I installed two touch screen monitors for the circulation desk and they are really nice!

I talked to the two media specialist at my other locations and discussed my site visits with them.  I will begin them in two weeks and I look forward to seeing the differences in the media centers at different grade levels.  I know I will enjoy the visits and they will likely enjoy having a new face around.  Have a great week!  RR

Checklist Item 8 - Georgia Educational Technology Conference

I want to take this time to tell you about my experience attending a conference last year on technology and education.  I visited Atlanta with a colleague to attend the Georgia Educational Technology Conference.  This is one of the larger tech conferences in the state and has all sorts of vendors as well as educators discussing technology and its uses in the schools.

I really enjoyed this conference and would recommend it to any educator with an interest in discovering ways to include technology in the classroom.  They have seminars on everything from classroom management tools to grade books and everything in between.  You will definitely come away from the conference feeling like you learned something.  All of the sessions were informative, to the point, and not too long.  This way you could attend several sessions of your choice throughout the day.  My colleague is a language arts teacher so we would split up a bit so that he could attend sessions that were specialized for language arts teachers.  It was really neat.  I am really into using web 2.0 tools in the classroom along with Google so I went to as many of those type sessions as I could.  I also enjoyed learning about Edmodo and Moodle.  We are planning to go back this year to learn a bit more.  If you get the chance please try and attend.

Reflection and Checklist Item 7 - Media Blog Week of 9/8 - 9/12 and ALA Membership

Good morning blog world!  This week I joined a professional association in an effort to improve my professional development.  Of all the groups out there, I decided to join the American Library Association, better known as the ALA.

I liked the ALA because of its national prominence and all of the support that they offer to their members.  The list of resources is very impressive and should provide my with everything I need!

In the CMS media center we have been very busy processing new Smart document cameras that were purchased for all of the teachers.  We took in 45 in all.  These cutting edged technology cameras will allow the teachers to do all sorts of things with documents, 3-D objects, and other stuff with the students.  They are really cool!  We did inventory and put them into Destiny.  Another task was to go through our Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl book collection.  We processed all of the new books and signed off on them so that students could begin using them.  Ms. Peters also discussed with me things that we need to begin doing for the book fair that starts in a few weeks.  See you next week!  RR