Read-worthy blogs that deserve a glance.
Australian teacher librarian, and overall seasoned educator, Barbara Braxton writes comfortable and accessible blogs to inspire and help educators. She describes her mission being fulfilled as these blogs satisfy her love for writing, expressing opinions and supporting teacher librarians. She effectively achieves her purpose as these blog entries help many educators. The blog includes a lot of basic set up for school librarians and presents cataloging and other policies in approachable ways. In Braxton’s own words, the blog “offer[s] ideas, information and insight that can be used by others to enrich and enhance teaching and learning in the school.”
Posts are aimed at teacher librarians and talk about various roles that educators take on constantly, hence the theme of 500 hats. Some of the more valuable posts reference these various roles like being creative, kind, and even gardening, which covers a librarian’s dreaded weeding process! The blog’s usability is not complimented by a striking visual presence, as the header’s photo seems dated, making the blog less aesthetically pleasing than it deserves to be. Despite that though, I fell in love with this blog. It’s well organized, has a drop down “categories” menu on the right and a list of recent posts. There is also a map icon of where in the world visitors of the site are located, which I imagine to be relevant due to her living on an island. She also maintains The Bottom Shelf, another blog for educators based around children’s literature.
Due to some helpful procedures covered on the blog, I think some of the entries could be used as lessons, like one on evaluating websites. This traditional version of blogging with rather short entries makes it highly accessible as well as easy and quick to read. This could benefit new teacher librarians but also seasoned ones who might just be new to blogging. I think professional development could be valuable here wherein this blog is used as an example and new librarians (or those new to blogging) write blogs on the same topics. Minimal information on the page makes reading efficient and enjoyable, and I think it could give new bloggers a great idea of where to start!
A middle school librarian in Howard County runs this blog, and I was so pleasantly surprised I stumbled across it! Gwyneth Jones also runs her own personal blog, but this Daring Library one seems a bit more for the school. A lot of the information pertains to the students and the school community, and the blog seems to organize relevant information all in one convenient spot. For instance, school newspapers can be found as well as video announcements. There are also links to the county’s summer reading program and resources for teachers at the beginning of the school year and during COVID’s virtual learning time. Jones achieves her goal of not only connecting with students but also with her community and librarians nationwide!
She exemplifies care and concern for the students and learning. I think school librarians could learn tons from her about what resources to put up on their own blogs or websites. I would try to copy this formula and integrate it into my own school’s library website. I also think professional development and learning can easily be posted under the Teachers heading. Jones does this and it's a great resource for teachers to be able to go back and visit the site when they have issues or just for tips and tricks. This blog is well organized and she has photos and bitmojis for everything! I think it’s catchy enough to keep kids’ attention but might be a bit busy for adults or some teachers.
Laura Pearle cultivates this blog focusing on the “intersection of school, libraries and technology” (Pearle). She posts about societal issues, recently anti-racism, school library challenges, teaching and policies, and covers books and technology too. Pearle has her blog posts well tagged so they are easily organized. Readers can locate numerous posts about an interested topic or category, all on the same page.
One post about cataloging is helpful for both librarians and school librarians. She references the Dewey Decimal Cataloging system and small ways that she seems to subvert it. This school librarian category also contains a post about the ways in which these areas connect:
AASL standards meets Future Ready Librarians meets ISTE standards, which really interests me due to the current course I’m taking on Learning Technologies! The blog has a menu on the right-hand side with, one might imagine, some of her favorite blogs – which include The Sassy Librarian and Free Range Librarian. The site is easy to navigate and visually pleasing. Pearle keeps attention focused to the content by maintaining a minimalist design, and this works for that purpose. I think some of her posts are valuable for library and technology purposes.
Particularly, Pearle has a section titled Minor Musings that provides a lot of usable links to content. She provides links to a modern day Oregon Trail game called When Rivers Were Trails. This game might fit well into the classroom, perhaps through Social Studies or Media/Technology curriculum. She also provides a link to an art museum, which might help art teachers give some virtual assignments to students. Much like the cataloging and technology ones I have linked above, when meeting with teachers I would try to direct them to these useful resources. I also think I could effectively utilize posts from this blog in a weekly intention I have to create a Media newsletter.
References
Braxton, Barbara. “500 Hats: the teacher librarian in the 21st century.” 500 Hats. www.500hats.edublogs.org/ Accessed 17 June 2020.
Jones, Gwyneth. “The MHMS Daring School Library Blog.” Daring Library. Edublog. www.daringlibrary.edublogs.org/ Accessed 17 June 2020.
Pearle, Laura. “Venn Librarian: Reflections about the intersection of schools, libraries and technology.” Venn Librarian. www.lpearle.wordpress.com/ Accessed 17 June 2020.