Student Learning Outcome 5

Aligned with Student Learning Outcomes

SLO5. The student engages in professional development and service and identifies specializations and related professional organizations as relevant to individual interests.

Artifact

Co-Facilitated at East Carolina University, Librarian to Librarian Summit, February 8, 2014

• Title of the Session: How Usable Is Your School Library Website?  Best Practices and Conversations about Student Needs and Website Design

Reflection

I was very fortunate to be a co-facilitator at East Carolina University for the Librarian to Librarian Networking Summit.  I was able to share my perspectives as a new school librarian implementing best practices learned from the research project and independent study. This experience allowed me to see firsthand how speaking at a conference works.  I learned the process of applying with the initial proposal, planning, and finally public speaking.

After completing Human Subject Training and becoming IRB Human Subject Certified, I was able to analyze the results of school librarian surveys and website evaluations conducted in the initial phase of the research.  This allowed me to identify what constitutes a user-centered website and what school librarians think about them.  I contacted and interviewed four school librarians from the study to discuss the research findings.  From my evaluations, I learned that the majority of school library websites in our study were missing valuable key components that attract young users.  For example, most school library websites lacked age-appropriate graphics with clean designs, online quizzes, voting, forums, message boards, and wikis.   With this knowledge, I began the transformation of my own school’s website. I contacted one of Johnston County School’s Digital Teaching and Learning Coordinators, and she met with me on three separate occasions.  We updated my school’s website, organized the navigational tabs, and consolidated many of the pages that were not being used.  I was then able to clean and update my library’s web page, and start a personal teacher page. As a result, I became a web master at my school and was asked by my principal to become a Digital Learning Coach for our faculty.