When reviewing the different website possibilities for media centers in our public schools, it is fascinating how many take the drab and make them fab! Although, on the flip side, many were difficult to navigate and proved to be incredibly time consuming for users. Some librarians have no control of the interface of their media center page. After reviewing the various webpages, blogs, social networking sites, etc., I created my list of top ten must haves for a school library's webpage (when given the flexibility).
1- MAKE IT EASY to navigate! Many parents nor teachers have the time to surf through multiple links to get to their desired destination.
2- Student safety is the TOP priority! When incorporating student images, work, etc., make sure that the safety aspect is always in the forefront of your planning. Make sure that while student's work is given credit, that they are not easily accessible as victims to averse ways of others.
3- Make Signing up easy! Incorporate a way to sign up for media center times and technology that is available through circulation in the media center. GoogleDocs would be a great tool to establish to incorporate this strategy.
4 - LIVE Calendar - Incorporating a live calendar that will update as classes are assigned, items are checked out, and resources are made available and unavailable, would be a terrific tool to assist in making cross curricular learning more feasible.
5 - Have a designated place to incorporate a virtual tour of the library & a presentation of special projects.
Show off your library and all of the special programs that the students are participating in.
6 - Try to keep social media networking sites to a minimum. If you are going to participate in SMN, then pick 1 or 2 and keep them up-to-date. Make sure to follow your district's policies and procedures in regards to appropriate use for social networking.
7-Incorporate a bookblog, Wiki, GoogleDocs, or some other type of multi-user option, where teachers and students can add a review of a book, website, or app that would be useful to other teachers, parents, and students.
8- Resource Link - Incorporate some type of Wiki or GoogleDocs that can be used to accumulate the resources used regularly for units of study.
9- OPAC Link - Make sure that there is a link to your school's OPAC system so that students can use it to find books of interest to review on or off campus.
10 - Make it Hip! If possible, make the interface inviting to users! If the website looks drab, no one will want to explore it! FOLLOW Tip #1 to make it easy to navigate but make it cool looking!
Your very first rule is the most important and the easiest to break. Keeping our websites simple is the best way to increase the usage of our site. How awful is it when you need to find something but you have to click a million different links, and then wade through a long list of information. Making sure that we stick to the most important information will keep our website workable.
ReplyDeleteIn most of my communications courses we were taught that what can be said in 10 words can easily be said in 5. For a class assignment we were told to summarize the movie the Lion King in as few words as possible. The person who won got it down to two words, “Simba Crowned”. Obviously someone who hasn’t seen the movie wouldn’t even know who Simba was, but through those two words they still gave enough important information without beating down the readers. I think this is how we should approach designing and creating our webpages. Information is important, but we should be able to decipher what is important and what should be left out.
Also, I think number 6 is great. I think library websites should include three forms of communication. For myself I would have an email address, twitter, and Facebook. Obviously this would vary depending on your school, but it is important to “stay social”.
Awesome observations Erin! Very impressed with your list, I think you hit the nail on the head with making the website really pop. I have also visited many school websites and unfortunately due to lack of time or just being uneducated most of the ones I saw could really use a face lift. I think probably the most important topic when it comes to school websites is trying to keep them updated. Even the most drab website will probably still be used by the public as long as it has relative and up to date information. There is nothing worse than trying to look up resources and the link says "it has been moved" or "this page no longer exists". There is no doubt in my mind that keeping information up to date is time consuming but it would probably be a lot easier to change one or two links every couple of months than changing several once a year. I would assume, not being a media specialist myself, but a lot of editing could be done at home or even over the weekend.
ReplyDeleteSince I began this program at WGU I have probably viewed more than 100 media center webpages. I agree with all of your points on creating a good one. Probably the most important is to make it interesting and fun (hip). Of the ones that I have explored, the boring ones were quickly closed before moving on to another. I really enjoyed the websites with embedded media players and pictures. It is not hard to incorporate these and it adds so much to the overall appearance. Another thing that I look for when visiting any website is how recently it was updated. Updating and keeping a webpage is important for return traffic. If student pictures are included that will attract parents who may share the link with other friends or relatives. The calendar is another important feature, especially when scheduled events are cancelled due to weather as we have seen this year. Also, signing up via the website is another great idea. If the media specialist is responsible for lab schedules, like at my school, it would be great to have the schedules readily available to all teachers and staff.
ReplyDeleteI love all of your top ten suggestions! having a virtual tour of the library is a great way for parents and students to map out the resources available. Incorporating Googledocs for signing up for media center times for classes or even checking out equipment is a great feature. We do not have those options available here in our school, but hopefully in time we can incorporate them in our media center webpage. Looking cool and easy to navigate are awesome suggestions especially considering that students are more likely to use something they find engaging.
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