Learning through Books, Media and Technology

ARTICLES THIS ISSUE:

Chico High School: Uning the library media center and its tools to push out the walls of the classroom

What do you do with 4,000 students? A Great library media center helps!

Library as learning laboratory — for students and teachers

From local access systems to global dialog

Helping students and staff connect

Restructuring: getting to the heart of the learning process

Making the most of learning resources, from human to technological

Winning combinations — kids, technologies, teaching partnership

A "logical place" for applications of information technology

The "Dream Team" at work: changing ideas of how we prepare students for the future

From library to "Discovery Center" — a marriage of tradition and technology

Good Ideas! Briefs

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Restructuring: getting to the heart of the learning process

Clovis West high School
Fresno

Clovis West High School employs a team of library media teachers who are supported by two full-time library technicians. This was done as part of a conscious restructuring effort that identified the library media center as the heart of the learning process. What are the results?

• Advance planning with teachers from every department for cooperative teaching efforts
• Technology viewed as a tool that allows the collection to be more easily updated and that places research within every student's reach
• Increased student involvement with real research; less time spent with textbooks
• Clearer vision in evaluating new technologies and their place in the educational process
• Limitless potential

From left to right: Bill Weiks, Keisha Blakely, and Roberta Cornelius at NewsBank CD-ROM station.

In addition to the variety of software programs for use at the five Apple and three IBM student work stations, this library media center offers seven stations for accessing the library catalog, a variety of CD-ROM applications for bibliographic Information and text, and online searching. All management functions are, of course, computerized.

An observation from Bill and Roberta, the two library media teachers, is that while the traditional card catalog often required more skills than kids could handle, the online catalog appeals to all ability levels and yields better results. the Boolean search capability provides a specificity not available on three-by-five-inch cards! They also see more student enthusiasm, resulting in higher energy directed toward assignments. Incidentally, everything circulates, including reference materials videos, and equipment!

What next? Bill and Roberta are quite specific. They see a need for

• more time with teachers for training on the collaboration process;
• an evaluation component for every collaborative activity;
• distance learning via satellite; and
• networking of all classrooms to the library media center.
• Clovis West High School (Grades 9-12, enrollment 2,800)
  1070 E. Teague, Fresno 93710; (209) 431-6600
  Jerry MacDonald, Principal
  Roberta Cornelius and Bill Weiks, Library Media Teachers
  Clovis Unified School District