Recently I was talking to my mentor about the full day experience I had in local middle school's media center. We were discussing the differences between elementary and middle school media centers, students, and teachers. She mentioned that she would soon be traveling to Luella Elementary School in Locus Grove. Luella's media center was named AASL's National School Library Media Program of the Year for 2008. The first ever from Georgia to be awarded. As my mentor began describing some of the awesome things she's heard about the school and its media center, she pulled up their website.
The first thing I noticed on the school's website was how many different awards and accolades the school has collectively won. The school's principal has even written a book, Students On Strike, which received a starred review by the School Library Journal. I also noticed that the school's homepage offers a lot of important school info and is divided into helpful tabs and highlighted links. After locating the media center's web page, the first thing I noticed were the picture slide shows. These do a great job of sparking interest in the media center and had me discovering what goes on in a Library Media Program of the Year! The media center's web page itself was pretty basic in design but also helpful. I'm not sure how easily younger students could navigate it's tabs. They seemed more for teachers, but I loved that they had cataloged monthly events and provided pictures with short descriptions for each. There was also a "quick reference" bullet that provided links to pertinent websites (e.g. GALILEO, Tumble Books, and dictionaries) that teachers, students, and parents could use.
After doing research for this blog topic and then viewing the web page of this award-winning media center, I was left feeling comforted. I realized that not every "award-winning" website represents an "award winning" media program. Granted, I think Luella Elementary's website is a good one, but I don't think it'll be winning any webbie awards anytime soon. This, however, does not make me believe any less in their award-winning program. After all, a website alone can not encapsulates all the fantastic learning and actual day-to-day activities of a media center. It is definitely important for a media center to create a helpful and interesting website. However, a great media program is not defined solely by its website, the number of computer workstations, or how many classes can comfortably be held within its walls at one time. All these things must add up to help create a meaningful experience in the media center, and it's the people, resources, and lessons taught there that will ultimately make the program a success.
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4 comments:
Guess where I was two weeks ago? At Luella Elementary! I had happened upon their website while researching for another class and was intrigued by the photos. This led to scheduling a visit. Wow! It is a large media center with so many engaging areas. The 2 media specialists job-share and have created a learning place that is collaborative and that soothes the senses. I learned more from Anne Wallace (one of the media specialists) than I have from my Admin books.
Their website was the impetus to further discover more about them. Even though it's not the best website(they are really busy with creating an excellent program), it did the job for me.
I've got photos and a video of what I found there, if anyone is interested!
Some very interesting points. I had to go look at their web page. I liked it. As I have said in other postings, I don't get to side tracked by lots of stuff. I found the Luella web site interesting. I like the scrolling pictures on the front page. My high school does that some and it gives the students a chance to see themselves and pics of the school.
I viewed the Luella Elementary School's website, and while the site was nice and easy to navigate, I agree with you Hollie. It did appear to be more for teachers and adults rather than students. The website did do a good job of promoting the school and the students, and it seemed pretty easy to navigate. I'm not sure if I missed it or it wasn't there, but I did not see a direct link to the media center itself. As someone said earlier, to paraphrase< I guess a "good" website is a matter of the opinion of the viewer. I liked the website and I enjoyed looking at the information that was offered, but it wasn't as pleasing to the eye as many others that I have visited.
What a great point you made in your final paragraph. I hadn't really considered it before, but a media center's web site alone can't truly encapsulate the experience of actually being in the facility and working with the teacher librarians. I think of the web site as an advertisement for the library, though. There may be students whose interest is piqued by the web site and who will then enter the library. (We can dare to dream, anyway.) This happened for Anne, when she saw Luella's website, and it made her seek them out. I think the web site should be a reflection of the media center and its many programs, but it isn't the most important aspect of the library--that would be meeting the needs of patrons who are present.
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