ETL 501 Teacher Librarian Collaboration Commentary

Activity  1.    

·        I have no idea about what the school is doing regarding a learning website as I am only a CRT. There is a school website and there is a link to the library. I am aware that they use Moodle but I know nothing about it.

·        A story board helps to visualise steps and sticky notes are easy to move around and change the sequence. This is harder to do in the finished product. If you can organise the structure first you ultimately save time.

·        I’ve looked at website design a lot lately. I am a huge fan of white space as I know how intimidating huge chunks of writing can be. They turn me off no end. That’s why I could never engage with Isobelle Allande’s House of the Spirits...but I digress. Tree maps show how to navigate around a site, and show structure. Contrast is important too. No dark on dark colours.

·        I started off looking at Weebly some time ago and ditched it because I was too impatient with downloading photos. I really had trouble with it and found the directions confusing. I’ll get back to it once all these assignments are completed. I found Wikispaces a lot easier. No frills here. Prezi is on my to do list.

Activity 2.

·        Subject content is the main criteria. If it doesn’t fit the curriculum and isn’t pitched at students, then what is the point?

·        I agree in principle that learning websites developed at the school are more likely to engage kids. The sense of ownership will be strong.

·        You can put a few points in the annotations referring back to whatever Info Lit model the school uses. I’m ashamed to say I don’t even know what the school uses because I am so rarely there and there doesn’t appear to be any reinforcement of policy around. I have seen a poster in the staff room about Bloom’s Taxonomy so I’ll draw a long bow here and suggest they may be fond of the Big6 model. But I’m only inferring here. I have no proof.

·        Annotations can give directions about how to use the resource. That’s helpful. Don’t be didactic or patronising as it turns readers off.

·        If students find a good resource we can encourage them to add it to the learning website-with a wiki this should be easy.

·        I read bits of Lynch and Horton (2008). Web Style Guide: Basic design principles for designing websites on line, at www.webstyleguide.com/wsg3/index.html. It goes on for pages and pages about interface design and is rather technical for the most part, so I was rather confused. Animoto looks really cool. The kids would love this. This is also on my to do list.