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Advocacy Assistant


Kansas Students A+chieve

Because of Great School Librarians!

November 2005 


In this issue:




A Communication Handbook for Libraries

(ALA) - This handbook was designed to help librarians and others develop and maintain effective relations with the media and win support for libraries and their programs, all with minimal use of precious resources. Starting with the basics, it explains what publicity is and how it can help a library attract attention, create interest and gain support and continues through creating a plan to connect with media.

Download the PDF version


UPDATE - KASL Advocacy Downloads Page


Several new items have been added to the Advocacy Downloads page:

  • a .jpg image of the KASL billboard (at the very bottom of the page)
  • Teacher (secondary) communication/collaboration tools for English, Math, Science, and Social Studies (Teacher Documents)
  • Teacher (elementary) communication/collaboration tool (Teacher Documents)

Check it out at  http://www.cgrove417.org/cghs/KASL/adinit/advdownl.html.



Some top reasons to work with your faculty (#3):

  • Provides students with hands-on learning experiences.
  • Incorporates technology and information literacy skills to enrich your teaching and enhance students’ learning.
  • Skills and curriculum are correlated and integrated.

Remember:  It's not what you do, it's the attitude with which you do it !!


Collaboration Activity: Web Site Evaluation


    This topic has garnered several articles and questions among KASL library media specialists. What better way to collaborate with the classroom teacher and/or the computer teacher than to help them and the students evaluate web sites.

    Briefly, from articles chiefly by Kathy Schrock, there are 4 A’s to web site evaluation: Authority, Authenticity, Accuracy, and Applicability to Purpose.

In an article for Cable in the Classroom, Kathy Schrock provided these five questions for a quick evaluation:


Who:    Wrote the pages and is the author an expert?

    Is a biography of the author included?

    How can you find out more about the author?    

What:   Does the author say is the purpose of the site?

    What else might the author have in mind for the site?

    What makes the site easy to use?

When:   Was the site created?

    Was the site last updated?

Where:  Does the information come from?

    Can I look to find out more about the producer/sponsor?

Why:     Is the information useful for my purpose?

     Should I use this information?

     Is this page better than another?

                    From: http://kathyschrock.net/abceval/


Following are several web sites that may be helpful:


http://www.cgrove417.org/cghs/KASL/ews.html

Features section of KASL.

http://www.skyways.org/kasl/Technology/KASLTech.htm

This site contains guidelines and lesson plans which maybe helpful.

http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/eval.html

WOW! This site has many avenues and examples for teachers and librarians to use.

http://www.schrockguide.org/abceval/index.htm 

This site contains Kathy Schrock’s ABCs of the Web Site Evaluation. It is simple and easy to use.

http://dewey.chs.chico.k12.ca.us/info-lit.html 

This site is from the California Chico High School and contains lessons for students to use before taking the information literacy test.

http://www.librarysparks.com

The magazine Library Sparks, December, 2005, has an article "How to Analyze Online Sources." By Karen Larsen. There are four lessons. The first two deal with understanding the URL address. The third has a one-page checklist for validating a web site. The fourth is a lesson on real or bogus web sites with examples to visit and determine the validity of the web site.

http://www.edhelper.com/teachers/graphic_organizers.htm

Need a graphic organizer to share or to use? This site gives you access to LOTS of them.

http://www.postcards.org/postcards/

Just for fun: Send a card for about any occasion!

Leah Murry

Lyman/Seaman Elementary

Topeka, KS

*Brought to you by your KASL Advocacy Committee:

Pat Allensworth, Barbara Bahm, Roberta Kobbe, 

Nancy McFarlin, Leah Murray, Sheri Roberts, Cheri Zabel