Staying Focused

This week I found myself trying to stay focused in the midst of a flu outbreak in my home. My kids were sick and miserable and by the time they felt better, I felt horrible myself. Still, I did my best to read the weekly materials and review some things about copyright I missed the first time. It seems both the Simpson book and some of my classmates believe the SLMS is completely responsible for enforcing copyright laws in the school. But I still believe that this issue is an administrative one and that it should not fall only upon the shoulders of the school media specialists. In the past months I've personally have witnessed how the media centers are the "catch all" for the school. Staff come in to use the computers, borrow books and media (which they sometimes don't return) and interrupt the story times. The SLMS are really taken for granted and many times overworked. (I just don't know how one person can do story times, book fairs, circulation duties, class visits and put books back on the selves, by themselves. It's just too much. And as if the above duties weren't enough, now the librarian has to monitor the staff and students when it comes to copyright enforcement.
I say let's have a mandatory teacher conference at the beginning of the school year, bring in a copyright attorney, the school superintendent, and the principal and discuss the issue. It's also a good idea for the SLMS to put up signs and have a couple of copies available of Simpson's book for staff to reference. This way everyone is informed and everyone is held accountable.
On another note, I was disappointed in myself for not adding more information about my second half of my presentation. I meant to have it as a hands-on segment but I should have included my thought process behind this. I will keep all of this information for future reference. All in all, I learned a lot while doing the assignment.
On a happy and ending note, I participated in a Web 2.0 activity with PBS. It was my first Webinar (seminar on the Web) and it was awesome. We were connected with educators from around the country and we discussed the upcoming movie "The Diary of Anne Frank". We also discussed how to implement the story of Anne Frank in a curriculum. The chat during the Webinar was very interesting because many of the teachers and students are creating great projects that will inform the world about the Holocaust. This is when the Web becomes a great learning tool.