Executive Summary

The Idlewood Elementary School’s media center is a very busy place for the mustang

family. There is a Macbook desktop for the daily news podcasts, the iPad carts are housed here,

there is one Viewsonic board, and 3 desktop computers. There used to be 10 desktop computers

until the district gave the entire staff Chromebooks. Many events take place in the media center

from book club to robotics. This is also a meeting place for faculty meetings, professional

developments, and Digital Learning Team meetings. The mustang news is also recorded, edited,

and published in the center.

Organizational Chart

Idlewood Elementary School

Media Center

Media Specialist Assistant Media Specialist

Shelves books Distributes all technology equipment

Check in/ out books Oversees inputting all student data into

learning applications

laminates Responsible for updating school’s website

 Teaches classes about research

Methods

Interviews of Idlewood’s staff (see Appendix A), Ms. Bishop (Appendix B), ongoing

(August-November 2019) observation (Appendix C) and information from the Idlewood Media

Center’s website were used to collect this data (Appendix D).

Center Context and Goals

The goal of Idlewood’s media center is to provide students, parents, and all members of

the school community access to information, reading, research assistance and instruction that

supports the curriculum and educational goals of our school.

Idlewood’s media center was established in 1967 as a library.

The media center offers “Techie Tuesdays” which provides technology training to our

staff based upon needs. For example, one week the techie Tuesday was about VERGE the LMS

the district implements. At this time the media center does not offer access to technology

workstations to the community due to lack of resources.

The current media center specialist is Ms. Frances Bishop. Ms. Bishop has served in

education for over 20 years and has an Ed.S. She is also dual certified as a media specialist and

in instructional technology. She has served as the media specialist at Idlewood for 5 years. She is

very knowledgeable in literacy and technology integration which makes her a great asset to
Idlewood, according to the staff. Ms. Bishop serves as the point of contact for instructional

technology needs of the building. She is responsible for the Mustang News, and to oversee the

learning applications and resources of the building. She is also the webmaster for the school

meaning she is responsible for setting up and updating the school’s website. Ms. Bishop is also

responsible for the distribution of technology equipment for students and staff. Meaning she

distributes the chromebook carts to the entire schools and oversees the uses.

Below is a list of some of the tasks Ms. Bishop is responsible for:

● Set up of AV Equipment (i.e., carts with projectors/laptops)

● Train staff to set up and operate media center equipment

● Instruct staff in the use of resources and computer programs: Such as Office 365,

VERGE, Discovery Education/video streaming, Destiny, GALILEO, Capstone

Interactive Library, Imagine Learning, and other databases, word processing, PowerPoint.

● Instruct staff and students in multimedia production and video editing

● Facilitate Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl

● Provide bibliographic/work citation assistance

● Place materials on special reserve for classroom assignments

● Operate the Padcaster video distribution system

The media center assistant is Ms. Goettlin She comes to assist on Mondays, Tuesdays,

and Thursdays. She helps Ms. Bishop with media center activities such as shelving, checking out

books, laminating, bulletin board, etc.. She does not assist with technology tasks.
 The media center hours are 7:50 am- 3:00 pm. 7:50-8:10 am is open time for students to

check out books.

There is no technology specialist or technology coach at this center. Ms. Bishop, the

media specialist, serves as both.

Center Activities

The center has just few technology activities; Techie Tuesdays which is an hour long

technology training for the staff every Tuesday, classes to teach digital research for students ,

and district mandated professional developments for the staff.

Evaluation

The data supports that the Idlewood media center is a sacred place for literacy and

learning for the school and its stakeholders. The staff of the media center provides unconditional

support to it’s Idlewood family and tries to meet the needs of each individual.

Going forward, I would recommend formatting an area in the center that can be used

explicitly for parents and students needing technology for homework or even to help parents with

personal needs such as resumes, job applications, etc.. I would also recommend providing

trainings to parents on our digital resources. These tasks are possible but are too much for one

person so the school needs to hire a Technology Specialist to complete strictly technology tasks

so the media center specialist can put her primary focus on the media center and it’s literacy

aspect.
(Staff) Appendix A:

1. What do you use the media center for other than to check out books?

2. What do you think can make our media center better?

3. Does the media center meet all of your technology needs? Explain.

(Ms. Bishop) Appendix B:

1. What do you do in the media center other than check out books?

2. If you could add one additional service to the media center what would it be?

3. Do you think the media center if a comfortable place for all stakeholders? Why?

Appendix C Observation Checklist:

● Technology that is accessible to the public in the media center

● Programs that are consistent for the Idlewood family

● Ongoing trainings that are available

● Technological resources that are available for teachers in the center

Appendix D Website

https://filecabinet3.eschoolview.com/61782F0E-3734-48B1-B231-

65561EEE1E15/Idlewood%20Elementary%20School%20Handbook.pdf