The State of the State’sSchool Library Media Web Sites

Maryland

Objectives

Students will become aware of the differences in School Library Media Web Sites in the state of Maryland 

Students will gather ideas for the web sites they will design as School Library Media Specialists

Introduction

The county school systems in the state of Maryland are quite varied, as are the individual schools within them. Therefore, their web sites are in different stages of development and they reflect the differing interests of the students and staffs for which they are designed.

As future media specialists in Maryland, we must be aware of what is going on in our state community. For this activity you will visit some of these web sites, examine their components and gather ideas for your own school library media center’s web site. We do not need to re-invent the wheel. There are great ideas already in use that we can adopt and modify to fit the needs of our own school.

This activity is designed as a follow-up to the School Library Media (SLM) Websites Elective for SLM521. It is designed to focus on Maryland schools only and is designed to provide an opportunity for you to use the Components to be Included in a SLM Website that you created for that assignment.

Activity

Visit the Maryland State Department of Education website with the county school system links, which are accessed by clicking on the name of the county. Spend a short time viewing the homepages of the various county systems and homepages of various schools. Notice whether or not there is a SLM link on that school’s homepage.

 MSDE County School Systems

http://www.msde.state.md.us/lealinks.html

Assignment

Choose 3 School Library Media (SLM) websites in the state of Maryland. You might want to choose 1 elementary, 1 middle school and1 high school within the same county or 3 high schools in 3 different counties or choose any combination of 3 that is of interest to you.

For each of the 3 SLM websites:

• Write the name of the school or write a pseudonym (School A)
• Use the Components to be Included in a SLM Website that you created for Elective Instructional Activity—School Library Media Sites
  • Place a + next to the component if it is included on that school’s website
  • Place a 0 next to the component if it is not included on that school’s website
  •  Example:
  • Hobbit Elementary School or (Elementary School A)
  • Components to be Included in a SLM Website
  • + Links to main categories of the high school’s web site

    0. Links for Parents and general public about SLM’s resources

    + Links to online services/databases purchased by the school…

• Make a list of the things you like about the web site that you would like to incorporate into the website that you will design when you are a SLM Specialist.
•  Make a list of links found on this website that you can use now or will use as a future SLM Specialist. Include title, URL and brief annotation—annotation is for your use, so a single word or phrase, "super" or "good for grade 5" will count as a 3 for the rubric.

  Copyright

Before using any information found on the web sites, be sure to seek permission from the web master or be sure what you use is in the “public domain.”

Rubric

 3

3 or more SLM websites have + or 0 Component notations

5 or more "things I like" item list

5 or more "useful links" with URL and annotation

2

2 websites have + or 0 Component notations

3 or 4 "things I like" item list

5 useful links listed but with incomplete URL and/or no annotations or

3 or 4 useful links with URL and annotation

1

only 1 website has + or 0 Component notations

less than 3 "things I like" item list

less than 3 useful links without URL and/or without annotation

   Reflection