SUNY EDC 6054: Final Reflection
Authoring for Educators – Final Assignment
While this course has ostensibly been about “authoring” digital learning materials, in the end, I decided to concentrate on alternative c. from the final assignment.
c. communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.
After experimenting with a number of new (to me) and relatively unfamiliar digital authoring tools during the course, ultimately, this project needed to be both practical and applicable to current objectives for the Main Library program.
At this time, we are concentrating on awareness of existing materials and services with both students and teachers. In order to reach the widest possible audience of both, then, broader use of digital information presentation tools is called for. To this end, we are ramping up use of live media links of several types in our Main Library HS and MS Blogs which are set as the browser entry point for all students launching a browser in Main Library.
Using a blog as the library front-end has a number of advantages over using a homepage. To begin with, blogging platforms include the built-in theme and widget features which allow those with limited digital skills or time to assemble a reasonablly attractive page. Secondly, the blogging platform is easy to edit and to maintain a series of quick, relevant informational postings. Finally, the blogging platform has become relatively standardized, so that even users unfamiliar with this particular page can navigate relatively intuitively through it.
While exploration of digital authoring tools has been a worthwhile and engaging sidebar to the last six weeks, in the end, the important thing has been to select the most appropriate tools for the task at hand. Book trailers sponsored by media companies and made by professionals are effective at both promoting interest in new or underused titles in our collection and at presenting a model of effective promotion for students interested in trying it out themselves. the other tools used in our blogs have similar dual uses, and we will continue to try new options as we expand our exploration of this new digital landscape.
Great work and I like how you are building on things you already have in place. The library blogs are a great place to continue to think about how can you engage your audience….in this case students. Media of all sorts can be added. The advantages to the blog that you state is why I too prefer them over a static html homepage.
On thing I’ve been thinking about is would student engage with say a Voicethread that greeted them on the site and some how engaged them to the point where they would leave a comment, either voice or text. I wonder if you just had pictures of popular books and students were able to leave review on them….then again it’s MS and HS students we’re talking about and managing that could be trick. So many possibilities I look forward to see you continue to trail ideas on your blogs.