Best Practices for Creating School Library Websites

Collect, link and publish descriptions only of about 3-5 different resources that you have found useful in better understanding your topic(s).

 - Assignment 2, LIBE 477B, UBC

Oh my goodness. The task of finding 3-5 resources useful for my chosen topic took me down Internet rabbit hole after rabbit hole. Interesting detours, yes, but not necessarily useful-for-university-level-academia detours. After much reading, I decided to focus on learning more about quality library websites. Here are some resources I’m liking the look of:

1. How Usable Are School Library Websites? A Random Sample from All Fifty States

This 2016 article details the results of a survey of school library websites from across the United States. The article states that most school library websites rate poorly on measures of how engaging they are, age-appropriateness, and website design best practices. The authors of the article came up with a best practice checklist on ways to make a school library website more usable. Much of the supporting research they cite also looks intriguing.

Image from pixabay.com

2. Analysis of Elementary School Web Sites

This article culminates in a list of important things to consider when designing and developing a website for an elementary school. It's from 2008 and not everything on the list is applicable to libraries specifically, but there are some good basic points:

• develop a shared agenda
• plan the site with various stakeholders BEFORE designing/developing
• design expecting change
• follow general web design rules
• focus on benefits (like sharing student work!)
• additional resource for teachers

I especially appreciated the reminder to ask for input from a variety of stakeholders (students, parents, teachers, admin...) on the proposed website plan before spending all the time creating the site.

3. The Virtual Library

This is an older article from 2005. it is an easy read that extolls the many benefits of having a school library webpage. Valenza's quote, "A virtual library can become an integral part of the instructional culture of the school" pretty much sums up why I think the library webpage is so important.

4. Jackson Elementary Library

This isn't an academic article about best practices. Instead, it's an example of an outstanding and current elementary school library website. I found it through an article from Edublogger called School Library Websites: Essential Features And Examples, but I'm sure I've also seen it somewhere in the materials for our course. I recognized the jaguar. According to my readings, this is evidence of good branding!

5. 6 Essentials Every School Library Website Needs

Again, this link isn't academic. It is a YouTube video attached to a blog post from "Mrs J in the Library". The thing I liked about it was the extremely user-friendly checklist of important things to include on a school library website that went along with the video. She even divided her list into 2 categories: Essentials and "Expert Level Extras". Being new to the library game, I appreciate the step by step approach she recommends.

 

I am interested in...

“What topics, ideas or “keywords” are you interested in exploring through some literature searches? What is in your professional practice or environment that you would like to explore further about digital technologies, web 2.0, or 21st century learning and why?”

-Assignment 1, LIBE 477B, UBC 

I am interested in how to create an effective elementary school library website. This doesn’t exist yet at my workplace and I can see it being extremely useful. Questions I wonder about: What should I include? What parts of a library website are most helpful for primary students? Intermediate students? Teachers? Parents? What programs am I allowed to use to create the website? 

I am interested in personal learning networks. I joined a Facebook group in July 2020. That group was called “The Science of Reading – What I Should have Learned in College”. I joined it because I had a son in kindergarten who wasn’t picking up reading as quickly I wanted him to, so I’d been researching how to best teach reading. The knowledge I gained from the posts on that group was incredibly useful. It benefited my son as well as all the students I have worked with as a resource teacher since then. I wasn’t expecting to gain so much professional knowledge through social media, but it happened organically and I enjoyed the process. How can I replicate that for others? How do I create a community of engaged online learners among my students or in my school among my colleagues?

I am interested in ChatGPT. I’m not sure what I want to do with ChatGPT, but it’s interesting and everywhere and I am sure I can find ways for it to help me. I’ve heard of teachers using it to create resources, write lesson plans and mark papers. What could I use it for? Are my current students using it? Probably not, since they are 8. What are the ‘rules’ for using it ethically?

I am interested in online research with younger grades. Is there a best way to carry out ‘inquiry’? How old do students need to be before they can research online independently? What are some ways to make internet research more successful for young learners? 

Image from pixabay.com

This is a lot of different topics – too many for one course! Both Chat GPT and personal learning networks are interesting, but they aren’t immediately applicable to my work situation so I’m less inclined to focus on them.

I’m teaching a grade 3/4 class this year, and I know we’re going to be doing some online research. Having more knowledge about teaching young students how to independently find the information they are looking for would be helpful right away. Doing a research project with my class will give me more experience in teaching students how to do online research and improve my future teacher-librarian skill set. Possible keywords for this topic: inquiry learning, primary students, online research

Building an effective school library website would also be immediately helpful. I can see this project fitting in well with the ISTE Leader Standard discussed in our reading: “Educators seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and improve teaching and learning” (Miller and Bass, 2019). Building a online framework that allows students and teachers to access the library catalog and digital resources available would be beneficial in many ways. It would support students being able to locate books of interest independently and give teachers access to digital resources that they do not know exist. Better resources will improve teaching and learning. Possible keywords for this topic: elementary school library websites, website design

I will do some initial reading on both topics and see which interests me more.

Miller, S., & Bass, W. (2019).  Leading from the Library: Help your School Community Thrive in the Digital Age. International Society for Technology in Education.