High School

 I spent a day at the media center of a brand new high school. And wow-the budget, and to be fair the focus counts too, from one side of the county to the other is astonishing. While we have a flip camera and a borrowed dvd burner for our morning news program they have a complete news station with sound, multiple camera angles, lighting and props and a real news desk from a local station. It is not run by the media center but the students in that department help out with production needs of the library. What great support. The shift from middle school student to high school is something I think I would be very interested in. The students seem more interested in what they are doing (maybe those are the only ones you see) and seem more inquisitive than all but a few at my location. I liked that the students were allowed to print in the media center because they were capable of following the one to two page guideline given to them, and only doing more if they checked first. We recently had to discontinue all printing mainly because the students could not be watched constantly and that is what seemed to be needed. Also, they needed less constant supervision to stay on task and were able to talk in the media center without getting out of hand. What a difference age can make!

One of the biggest differences between the locations though was the class arrangements. Where my school is four teams and all teams teach the same thing at the same time, it is possible at the high school level to work with one teacher on a project instead of having to work with every student in the school. But I have discovered from making a lot of site visits and talking with a lot of media specialists that the way all schools work is completely different. I think the more experience you can bring to one location the better and I am very thankful for an administration that encourages me to collaborate with, and gives me time to go, and visit others around the county.

Another big difference at the high school level (at least in this county) is the staffing—while elementary and middle school have one media specialist and a clerk, high schools have two media specialists and a clerk. While it is fun running my own show I would like the opportunity to divide the work. I love doing program administration and sometimes get tired of giving the same class over and over (again, might just be my location because one class usually means about 20) and the opportunity to learn from each other and join forces sounds pretty darn nice.