Week 15 - ED 566E.1

We presented our website tonight: www.freewebs.com/ontheshelf4kids . Check it out! We also heard presentations from the other groups. Some ideas that I came away with in addition to what we already created in our paper are included here. From our own web page, I'd like to include wee mee avatars to show dress for the week to help students remember to bring an umbrella or wear a heavy coat dependent on the forecast weather. I think this would be yet one more way to pull in parents to the site - possibly on a daily basis! We also created a wiki to compile our paper and I found this to be a great way to collaborate and I see uses for wikis for students as well as teachers and parents.
Read our paper here: http://libtechpaper.wikispaces.com/Paper

http://www.freewebs.com/afrydaly/index.htm
This group incorporated a directions widget which I think was a great idea and one that I would plan to include. There were also links to the ALA page of Award Winners which I think is a great way to showcase these. I had planned to create a Library Thing for each different award winner, which is still a possibility, but when these sites already exist, there's no need to re-invent the wheel. Pictures of the inside of the library really helps those who can't physically come to the library to know where their children are reading and learning each day. Teacher reference links are so important to attract the teachers to the site and create a central location for information. Homework Spot was also a website that I had never utilized before, so I'm happy to have discovered it through this presentation.

http://www.freewebs.com/futureschoollibrarians/index.htm
This group created a website focused on a high school age. They included library hours, which I think would be really helpful to include this, especially if your library is open during the evenings, after school, or in the summer. Page Flakes looked really neat - I'd like to learn more about that! Including AskHerePA was also helpful for someone who has a question late at night - and to utilize the public library resources. College website information would be helpful for high school graduates and I was thinking that summer camp and activity information would be helpful for my age group. I liked the foot note that was included on each page as well: "We're here to help you!"

Overall, I feel this project really helped me to find "real world" application for the applications we learned about. Weaving them together into one product was helpful and it was really helpful to see everyone else's products as well. I was pleased with the visual presentation of the web page and I am excited to incorporate some elements (as I already have begun to do) into my class web page. I feel confident in my ability to integrate technology into the library as it is an integral part of what the library has to offer.