Group: MN Promoting Your Media Center to Teachers  
RSS
Threads [ Previous | Next ]
RE: From frustration comes innovation
Showing 7 results.
From frustration comes innovation
5:33 PM EDT 4/8/09
Hey, welcome to the Discussion page!
Why don't we start off our discussion of outreach and promotion of MN media centers by talking about some of the troubles or frustrations you've come across out there on the front lines. Have you tried to reach out to teachers? What went wrong?
Anybody care to share? Perhaps by airing your grievances, you'll find someone who's experienced and overcome them in their library.
At the very least, it'll be therapeutic.
RE: From frustration comes innovation
6:01 PM EDT 4/15/09 as a reply to Matt Lee.
Here's a scenario I've heard several media specialists relay: There's a library database or tool that'd be perfect for a specific class. The media specialist tells the teacher of that class about it, but then when the media specialist follows up to ask how it's going, the teacher doesn't remember the interaction emoticon. The teacher is thrilled (emoticon)because the database or tool would indeed be perfect for his/her class, but they've never used it. Anyone have any ideas for making the initial interaction in this scenario more "sticky"?
RE: From frustration comes innovation
12:04 PM EDT 4/23/09 as a reply to Matt Lee.
Keep trying. Persistence pays off. But focus lots of time and energy on the teachers who enjoy collaborating and whose students clearly benefit from the work you do together. With a wealth of success stories, other teachers may "get it" and want to work with us too.
RE: From frustration comes innovation
12:09 PM EDT 4/23/09 as a reply to Matt Lee.
This is just a pet peeve. We are usually mega-busy in the media center from 7:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. or even later. We multitask like crazy and help hundreds of people daily. Then a teacher or administrator will walk in the door during a five-minute lull and say, "boy it's peaceful in here." Aargh! It doesn't happen often, but since our typical pace is fast-forward these comments make me crazy. I need to collect some statistics on our usage. That can make a powerful message! I just saw a disply at the Eden Prairie library that took statistics on their branch and really packed a punch. There's an image of it on their flickr account. Check it out! http://www.flickr.com/photos/edenprairielibraryEden Prairie Library
RE: From frustration comes innovation
5:06 PM EDT 4/23/09 as a reply to Jeanne LaMoore.
Hey Jeanne, love your idea of enlisting teachers who’ve used the library successfully to tell other teachers about library services. And your pet peeve sounds totally maddening, although I think you’ve found an elegant solution in a statistics display. That’s such a good and widely-applicable promotional idea that I hope you don’t mind if I put a link to the flickr page you point out in the Documents section of this group. Folks should steal that idea!
RE: From frustration comes innovation
4:55 PM EDT 5/28/09 as a reply to Matt Lee.
I just stumbled upon this interesting website with various ideas on how to promote the Media Center. http://eduscapes.com/sms/advocacy/promotion.html
RE: From frustration comes innovation
10:50 AM EDT 6/1/09 as a reply to Amy Lorenz.
Hey, that is an interesting site. Thanks for telling us about it! Looks like it provides lots of good examples and ideas to help in brainstorming ways to get the word out about libraries and media centers. I've added a link to the page in the Documents section of this group.