Reflective Comments-Library Grantwriting-SU Course 600

The whole grant writing concept was new to me so this class proved to be interesting and informative. Step by step procedures outlined in the class in readings will be applicable in future grant writing endeavors. Critical concepts to keep in mind are following directions and focusing on specific criteria for each grand, as each is unique.

Reflective Comments-Library Fundraising-SU Course 600

The project I used for this class was one I had done, a book fair. As I worked through assignments, I was able to create some new ideas for promotion of my own book fairs in my school. In addition, I had to think through the whole event throughly and came up with ways to evaluate the event.

Reflective Comments-Library Budgeting-SU Course 600

This class was somewhat of a review as I already work in a library and have kept track of budgts in several different libraries. Reviewing Excel spreadsheets was a helpful part of this course. One of the required readings was a PowerPoint about Excel that will prove to be an excellent resource to keep in my technology file.

Reflective Comments-Information Management in Schools-SU Course 661

This course was a nice overview of various aspects of management in the library field. I enjoyed the guest discussants who were invited to join us. They provided insight into the library field. The volunteer plan assignment was pertinent as the instructor allowed me to write a policy for the student volunteer helpers in my own library. The group project allowed for collaboration regarding the building of a behavior management policy. I was able, during the course of the project to explore the behavior management policy in my building and now feel more knowledgeable on this topic.

Reflective Comments-Secondary Practicum- SU Course IST 972

In my practicum experience I accomplished a number of goals which included: teaching a literacy lesson incorporating an on-line program, using various collection development tools to create a historical fiction list related to curriculum, exploring editing software, using the Noodletools citation program (this will be especially helpful as I have purchased this program for my school), attending a curriculum development conference/workshop and expanding my knowledge concerning inventory. Networking was a huge part of this experience and I have gained a colleague in the field.

Reflective Comments-Survey of Telecommunication and Information Policy-SU Course 618

This course was a good overview of various policies that affect libraries and information fields in general. Through the use of a group collaborative writing process we discovered various aspects of public sector information, not only in the United States, but around the world. In another group writing effort, we explored a trade institution (ALA). It was challenging to do these large scale writing projects via distance education but it was a good experience to have had. I especially enjoyed the YouTube assignments in which classmates and myself shared short videos connected to discussion topics.

Reflective Comments-Library Planning, Marketing and Assessing-SU Course IST 613

This class consisted of creating an immense planning, marketing and assessing document for a library program or service of our choosing. Many, many details of project planning were incorporated into this project. The host librarian I worked with, the librarian at our district high school, did not get deeply involved in the project but was available for questions.

I chose to develop (not implement) a program called "Readers and Reviewers" or "R and R." It is a voluntary program where students use VoiceThread technology to create multimedia book reviews and then comment on them. After delving so deeply into the project, I realize that I'm not so sure secondary students would want to participate or have the time to do so. It might be a good pilot test for the program to try to encourage participation and adding of book reviews by students to our current circulation system.

I struggled a lot in this course. This project was very detail oriented (something that doesn't come easy for me) and extremely time consuming. To be honest, I can't see how anyone in the library field would have time to plan something out ahead of time to this much of an extreme. I can see doing this for a very large or costly program or service that might be implemented, but the process is not very practical for school library programs.