Web pages for media centers have a lot of benefits. I really liked the article by Davide Warlick. Media Center web pages should help us do our jobs. Students and teachers should be able to go to our web page and get information they need to continue working and answer their questions. The article made several good points that everyone should consider when creating their web pages:
1. Ask your self why? Why are you creating the web page and what do you want it to do? Make sure you achieve this.
2. Does it help you do your job? It should allow students and staff to access needed information or learn needed information.
3. Who is your target audience? Design it for them. Make it appeal to them and answer questions they would have.
4. Design your web page for easy access of information
5. The layout should be scannable. We don't go to the web to read, we go for information and to answer questions. If we wanted to read we would check out a book.
6. Use bullets and indenting to organize information, keep paragraphs short and to the point
7. Make sure students and staff can find your web page, have a prominent link
8. Refer students and staff to your web page
9. Post commonly asked questions and answer to your web page
After viewing a number of media center web pages, including the links listed by Dr. Cooper I have a lot of new ideas for my own web page. I really liked the web page by the middle school media specialist. It had information organized in a manner that students and teachers could find what they were looking for. The graphics and color were appealing. The information answered a lot of commonly asked questions. You could easily navigate from page to page and back to home. The resources were great!
I think the most important point that was made in all of the readings is that the web page should help you do your job. There is usually only one media specialist per school and we can not be every where all of the time. The web page is a great way to communicate with students and staff and disseminate commonly needed information.
I like the list of considerations that you list for media center web pages. Web pages can be a lot of work, but can provide a great service if the information is timely and interesting. The examples given in the links from Dr. Cooper are great. I was interested to see the different styles - some were wikis, some were web page templates, some were created as blogs. All had good points.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your last paragraph, that the web page should help you do your job as media specialist. The web page makes it possible for the media center to be open 24/7. As more students get mobile devices, it seems that this can be the wave of the future - the media center that never closes!
Susan, I am all for media center webpage’s. However, I know that a lot of planning, and detail must go into designing a useful and properly functioning webpage. For example, if you are going to include links to other fabulous resources and other websites than you must check them often to make sure that the links are still working. Also, the information on the site should remain relevant and up to date, which means that the material and postings should be in sync with the happenings of the school. With all of the minor details that play into making a good media centers website, into a great media website; I am wondering, who is going to have enough time to constantly manage and maintain the website? Most media specialist that I have had a chance to observe are always busy and I’ve noticed that they don’t have engaging websites. So, in playing devil advocate on this issue, I don’t think the media specialist herself /himself will have enough time to create a winning, welcoming website.
ReplyDeleteKatie, I liked the point you made about the media center being open 24/7 because that is really true if the webpage is current and able to direct students to resources that they need.
ReplyDeleteDanica, I agree that media specialist are busy, but with budget cuts it only gets worse. I am the webmaster for my school webpage as well as most other media specialist in Henry County. Because we ended up with double duties when ITS were cut. We need to use our webpages to help teachers and students and hopefully it will help us too. Our duties only seem to grow, so we have to learn how to manage them.
I loved exploring the different media center websites. I explored some different ones in my county (not so great) and some surrounding counties as well. It was interesting to see to see how different they all were. They were all very individualized with different colors, different formats, and different content. I never thought about the media center webpage creating 24/7 access to the media center. That is a pretty cool idea!
ReplyDeleteI agree that it will be extremely difficult for media specialists to keep their webpage current and up to date. There are so many demands on media specialists that I know webpages get put on the backburner. In our school we will be losing our media clerk next year and our media specialist is concerned about the impact that will have. How will she get everything done? I don't know the answer to that question, but I do think that the media center webpage must be a priority!!! You must be your own advocate! Maybe if you could set aside a time each week to work on it that would make it more manageable. Think of all the parents who work who are not able to come into the media center in person. Their only chance to see the media center may be viewing your webpage. What do you want them to see?
Your blog was both informative and interesting to read. Thank you for including information from the article written by Davide Warlick. I too think that web pages should help media specialists to do their jobs better by organizing information to help serve the students and teachers. This can be done by keeping calendars and useful website links on the site. Web pages are there to help the students and teachers and should include relevant information on how to benefit them. I agree that media specialists should design their site with their target audience in mind. Since I teach elementary school, our school website looks very different from that of a high school media center. As your blog states, I agree that it is also important to keep your website layout user friendly. Luckily, our school system subscribes to a system that keeps all of our web pages similar by using the same format. I feel like this helps to keep it user friendly for our school population.
ReplyDeleteI think the ability to navigate the page with ease is what keeps visitors away and what make them return to a webpage. Whenever I look at a webpage, I expect to find what I want fairly easily. If it takes too long to locate the information I am after, I will get annoyed and decide to try other sources. I know that this happens a lot with other people as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Media Centers having websites could definitely make the job of a Media Specialist much easier, IF relevant information is posted and posted in a timely manner. With the websites being used as a source of information for teachers, parents, students and community members, it must be with UP TO DATE information or else the website becomes obsolete. As you pointed out, I think it is critical for the question to be asked…why am I doing this and who is the targeted audience. Often times, websites are created but not viewed much, because the information isn’t easily accessible. In today’s world, time is of the essence and if someone has to look to long for information, then it’s very easy to search for a more user-friendly website.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that less is always more when creating a website that is informative. I currently have a website that I use for my kids www.abcmouse.com , which is a great site, with many interactive features; however there is way too much information on the site. I’m constantly clicking and clicking, often being further removed from the answer in which I am seeking. This becomes frustrating and I close-out of the site, not going back often, even though it has great children activities. Hence, it is imperative that the website is one that answers questions and is able to provide a visitor with the information they are seeking without too many clicks:)