Blogs

Ann Richards School Practicum

Tuesday, Jan. 29^th 10am – 6pm

Today my main focus was to work on the blogs that we discussed as being part of my major contribution for my practicum.  I researched other library blogs mainly and I took notes on what they were doing—what seemed effective and what I wanted to avoid in our blog.  I found a blog written by Terri Lesesen (the author of READING LADDERS).  Her blog is called: “The Goddess of YA Literature” http://professornana.livejournal.com/

The content on this site is great!  She really knows what she is talking about and guides young readers to a host of wonderful new books.  She is also very fun and enjoyable to read.  But Shawn and I both agreed that the “look” of the blog was somewhat lacking and that the tagging system was limited.  We agreed that we would like to improve on these items in our blog.  I also thought that if this was going to be a student generated blog, we should probably include some guidelines for them—so that they know what our expectations are for a good blog entry and some guidance for how to write a good book review.  I found two great sources for leading questions to ask as you write a book review for both fiction and nonfiction works.  I then incorporated these questionnaires into a word document which we will include either on the top navigation bar or on the side navigation bar (again, I need to do more research on where to place blog support items for best viewing).  I also noticed that a few blogs that conducted book reviews had a thumbs up and thumbs down icon that gave readers an immediate impression of the book.  I liked this and I plan to do further research on how to develop this icon and include it on our blog.

During the course of the day, I was also able to continue in my observations of the Ann Richards School community and the general day to day activity in the library.  During this day, the library was in use by the sixth grade language arts class.  They were not receiving library instruction, but were using the library resources as a class for a class project.  In the course of the class, one student became ill.  Its flu season and she was trying to make it to the bathroom, but didn’t quite get there in time.  I was impressed by the quick action of the staff, including the librarian to comfort the student, get her sent to the nurse and to clean up the mess.  I was equally impressed that the girls did not exacerbate the mortification that the young woman must have felt in this instance.  Her colleagues and classmates (once assured that she was ok) just went back to their work and everyone carried on just the same.  It was a very mature response to what might have been a very distracting occurrence.

A second and equally impressive event took place later in the day as I was signing out for the day.  Again, a sixth grade girl came into the office and said, “did anyone turn in $20?” To which I thought—yeah, right!  Good luck with that! But to my surprise, Barbara, the school administrator, said, “what did it look like?  Was it two tens?”   The young woman answered, “No, it was a twenty dollar bill.”  And Barbara said, “Yes, just a minute,” returning a second late with the twenty dollar bill!  I am so impressed with this honorable school environment.  They truly take their commitment to be honest and responsible young women!  It strengthens my belief in human kind!