Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: September 13, 2011
As the school year begin a media specialist posted a request for help on LM_Net.* I know [we] used to be able to set up free accounts to databases such as EBSCO and must admit, I just never seemed to get around to taking care of this . . . Are any databases still available [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: August 7, 2011
. . . The links I wanted my students to use were dead. We went back to the classroom and didn’t use the lab that day. It’s new, but “old” and familiar story. It never hurts to double check to make sure everything is in working order, even if your students are using resources you [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: May 5, 2011
Why are media specialists still closing media centers at the end of the year for inventory? Automation systems and better yet — hand held PDA’s make it an unnecessary and outdated practice. What message does this send to students who want to read? What message does it send to decision makers who are eliminating media [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: January 3, 2011
A new year; a new batch of resolutions about all the new things we will learn about technology and web 2.0. We media specialists seem to do a pretty good job of being hard on ourselves for the things we don’t get done or the things we don’t learn. I’ve been struggling with Dreamweaver .css [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: December 27, 2010
A media specialist had a list titled REAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT stuck to his computer. Hooking up laptop projector Google Docs Scanners Airliners Basic photo editing Managing email Group emails Creating a PDF Accessing resources and stuff right in front of your nose Media specialists, especially building level specialists, are ideally suited to help teachers become [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: November 23, 2010
The vet tech at a local vet clinic made my day! I stopped in to buy my Siamese cat a Treat. He asked if I used to work in the media center at the middle school. He said I helped him and his friend with their report about wolves; the Internet was new to the [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: September 23, 2010
A student in the Innovations & Opportunities for Media Specialists class said her principal wanted her to shelve fiction books by topic. She wasn’t quite sure what to do. I rattled off ways in which we’ve shelved series books in attractive baskets or on special shelves in elementary media centers and described the shelved face [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: August 20, 2010
Shakespeare in Winona! 2004: I was quite excited to learn a professional theatre group was forming right here in our island city along the Mississippi. I added links to our district web site volunteered in the costume shop, ushered at performances and delivered brochures to the schools. I fully intended not to do any volunteer [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: August 20, 2010
Mary Ann Bell hit the proverbial nail on the head in her July/August 2010 Belltones column about teacher use of web 2.0. Where are the people who are doing all of the interesting things? Who are they? Media specialists credit (blame) the lack of time, skills and technical restrictions or filtering on the limited web [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: May 21, 2010
A media specialist posting in a discussion group inquired about the benefits of making space in a media center for a computer lab. It would mean seriously weeding and giving up space. Yes, of course; Labs in media centers are a natural fit. One media program — and of course our students– benefited from a [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: May 16, 2010
Here we go again! Wishing for a non-existent whiteboard appears to be is the newest “excuse” for not using technology in the classroom. We’ve heard it all before: I don’t have a computer; I don’t have a good enough computer; I don’t have Internet; I don’t have a projector. And, on and on it goes. [...]
Posted by: Mary Alice Anderson on: April 23, 2010
Amazing. I have just viewed the Draft of the National Educational Technology Plan. A project I coordinated in 1995 is cited on page 30. A group of teachers and I worked with a history professor and the County Historical Society to create the content about demographic groups in Winona, Minnesota. A local web site [...]
