Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Transue - Response to Russel Street School Blog

I was very impressed overall with this school's blog. I like that in addition to the individual course blogging that we are discussing in this course to see what can happen when an entire school chooses to use this tool to communicate and share what they are learning. The school claims to work to bring education into the 21st century and they are doing an impressive job of it.

I must admit I was a little less impressed with the library resources posted on this site. Part of it is that it it a little bit buried. I first went to the staff page to look for the librarian and was unable to find anything beyond two library assistants. I am very concerned that they do not have a professional librarian on staff which is critical to 21st century learning skills of research strategies, evaluation and ethical use of information. Perhaps library assistant means something else in Australia; here in the US it typically means the clerks who check out books, rather than the professional librarians who offer information literacy education.

The library blog page itself looks a little forlorn; there have only been five posts in the past year. It is also impossible to determine what resources they have in their library from the library blog page. That is because a library home page is not the same as a blog. The resources are organized differently by topic rather than chronologically by date. I would have preferred a link from the blog to an actual library page which listed available reference and educational services and resources such as information literacy classes, catalog, databases, and recommended online resources by topic.

While I am impressed with how this school is using blogging to create and shared educational experiences, I wish that would extend to information literacy and the library. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case at this present time.

3 comments:

  1. Very interesting insight, I would have not not have looked for, or at the angle you addressed. Clearly being from the librarian arena you've provided a unique viewpoint.

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  2. Beth, I'll be honest and say that I don't know if this is common for New Zealand schools or not (i.e., not having a strong librarian presence). The fact that you didn't find much web presence about the library doesn't surprise me.

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  3. Beth, your comments about the library page was spot on! There were a few other areas on this blog that were not as developed.It is tough to have 100% buy-in from every staff member and every student, and I wonder if we are seeing one area that is struggling because of time or expertise. What suggestions would you offer to improve this area? I am one our school's website maintenance people and our library is not featured as well as it should be either. Any suggestions would be welcome!

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