Why is communication important?
Throughout our program, we have been communicating via different modes like online responses, research papers, videos, blogs, and email. Communication is ever so important because it allows you to express your ideas and opinions and best of all...ask questions! As an educator, we need to think about who our audience is and what is the purpose of what we are trying to communicate. Are we talking to our peers, a parent, or a second-grade student-how do we tweak our message for our audience without losing any meaning? There is a "right tool" for every job. Our coursework allowed us to attain skills to express ourselves in different situations and via different modalities.
Educational Blogging
Several of our educational technology classes have given us the opportunity to explore blogging. I find blogging a really neat way to express your understanding, thoughts, and personality through your writing. We explored several blog providers and were able to pick the one we liked best. As a librarian, I can see myself creating a blog for books I've read to share with parents, students, and teachers at my school. You can explore my blog writing by clicking on the image to the left.
Research Methodology
HIED 595 was the class that I waited until last to take. I absolutely dread writing in APA style and had nightmares from my undergrad that involved an immense about of anxiety with regards to structured writing and evaluation.
I felt so dumb when it came to research writing. I can say that this class actually brought me to tears. However, I persevered even after calculating how many points I could lose in areas and still graduate. The instructor gave us a template(thank God!) and I asked several of my high school English teacher friends for help guiding me through this class. The instructor may as well been speaking Japanese to me when he talked about APA guidelines. I had no idea what in the world Turn It In was(this didn't exist the last time I wrote a real paper) and I learned Grammarly is a great tool.
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One interesting part of the research process was evaluating the different types of research methodologies you could use in your paper. Who knew there were so many ways to investigate a problem outside of the traditional scientific method. Here is a selection I wrote about Qualitative & Quantitative Research.
The topic I decided to write about, the Educational Value of Graphic Novels, luckily had quite a bit of material available. I learned how to use the Gee Library to request resources and use online databases to find and collect articles. I made a friend at the TAMU-C Online Writing Lab who provided me with very valuable suggestions and critiques of my writing. He was ever so helpful with the technical side of writing and APA guidelines. In the end, I came out with a great grade and a sense of pride for tackling one of the most anxiety-inducing classes in this program.
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Click to view my finished Research Paper
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Professional Communication
In LIS524 one of the main tasks we were charged with was to write a Library Collection Development Policy that reflected the needs of our library patrons. I examined several other policies from different schools to create one that would best address the needs of our campus. In addition to research, I had to evaluate any policies or processes in place and incorporate those into the main policy too.
When writing a collection development policy, it is important to create a mission statement as an overarching idea for the policy. In order to write the policies for the users, I had to evaluate the patrons. In some cases, the policies were already created by the district such as in the case of the Challenged Book section. Our district has worked with their legal team to devise an acceptable plan. I found the Weeding section quite interesting and had to research the CREW method and apply it to the needs of our library. It's interesting what needs to be spelled out for the public when pulling together a library program but to keep order in the library, we must have rules.
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Marketing
Creating and marketing programs is one of my favorite things to do. I love selecting an idea and making it come to life. In LIS 540 we were asked to come up with a library program for students to participate in. Using the "problem" of low circulation numbers in the non-fiction section, I decided to make a library program where students could check out books in the categories on their passports and then families could also come to "Non-Fiction Nights" at school to garner further interest in the reading category.
Basically students explored the non-fiction area to learn how to use the Dewey Decimal system. Each student was given a passport to complete. As they checked out books that fell in that category and read them, they got a stamp. I created a program overview, the passport for the students to use and a flyer advertising the program.
