Evaluation of Apalachee High School Media Center

Aaron T. Cleveland

Fall 2015

Executive Summary

The Apalachee High School Media Center has a variety of functions related to technology and literature resources for students and teachers. The resource center has created an embracing culture for reading by creating an open-door policy for students to come and go as they please in the mornings and afternoons and providing direct communication with the Media Center Specialist regarding recommendations for books and titles, and events that encourage reading. This resource center also has many tables for students and faculty to use, which is often necessary for the different events that range from awards and recognition ceremonies to faculty and professional developments. The Media Center is also the focal point for technology assistance, storage, and usage for teachers and students. The center provides replacement equipment if needed, a computer lab for classes to use, and two Chrome Book carts for teachers to sign-out and bring to their classrooms. Although success of the Media Center is reflected in increased circulation and readership, the center has a significant lack of technology resources for most class sizes, a lack of protocol for technology repairs or assistance, and hardware/software problems that reduce the user ability of equipment. To improve the technology aspect of the Media Center, recommendations are made to improve access to technology, create a clear and concise procedure form to be issued to all faculty and staff, and make improvements to the software on computers in the lab portion of the media center as well the wireless signal throughout the school in order to ensure successful use of the Chrome Carts. With these recommendations in place, the use of effective use of technology and proper assistance can be sustained.

Organizational Chart

Methods

Many different methods of data collection were conducted for the evaluation of the Media Center at Apalachee High School. After careful review of the data collected, the Media Center is not meeting its goals to supply teachers and students with technological resources and assistance, but is successful in expanding the reading program at Apalachee High School. The center’s Media Specialist is aware of many the problems regarding technology, which include capacity, hardware/software issues, and lack of an organizational flow. These issues have been expressed to the Principal of Apalachee High School. The Media Specialist is active in the obtainment of more literature in demand by users of the Media Center and has effectively encouraged expansion of the Media Center for reading purposes.

The following methods were used to collect data from the Resource Center:

Interview of Resource Center’s Staff: Interviews were conducted with the Digital Coach, Media Clerk, and Media Specialist.

Observations: Daily observations were conducted during the morning (before start of school at 7:30AM), in the afternoon (after school from 2:40 – 3:00PM), and during the school day at various times. A checklist used for observations is provided in the appendix (Item A)

Teacher Surveys: A questionnaire was sent to each teacher that used/requested technology or the literature area at the media center.

Daily Agenda of Media Center: Document via Google Drive accessible to Media Specialist for what faculty member or administrative employee signed out various resources of the Media Center.

Center Context and Goals

Apalachee High School was established in 2000. The Media Center has existed as the main resource center since the opening of the school. Initially, the enrollment at Apalachee High School in the year 2000 was approximately 700 students. Currently, the school enrolls approximately 1,700 students. The initial number of faculty members was 60. Currently, there are 118.

The resource center provides students and faculty with a myriad of technology and literature resources, as well access to space to hold class instruction and other functions. The Media Center also has an extension of two offices for the Special Education Department of Apalachee High School. There are 28 computers in the resource center; 26 are student computers; 1 computer is used for the use of an online-card catalog system called (OPAC); and 1 computer is used for presentation purposes and is hooked up to a mounted flat-screen TV along a wall near the entrance. There are 12 table spaces; 8 located in a corner of the media center; and 4 located near the entrance. There is a Digital/VHS library located to the right of the entrance to the resource center with access limited to faculty and staff. There is also a room with curriculum resources located behind the media clerk’s desk.

The mission for the Media Center at Apalachee High School is two-fold. One is to provide technology resources and assistance to faculty, staff, and students. The other is to encourage reading among the student population. The resource center has two full-time staff members, a clerk and a Media Center Specialist (MCS). The MCS is trained in grant writing and has had 8 total years of experience in Douglas and Forsyth County Schools media centers. Both staff members are in their first years working in this resource center.

Those with interest in the resource center are students, faculty, staff, administrators, and the public. The success of the center involves many people in different capacities that are not mutually exclusive and all hold an interest in positive climate the center promotes for reading and the up-to-date resources for teachers to use for lessons and instructional practice. Those over-arching components of the center are necessary to aid in literary development and student achievement.

Media Center Specialist: Facilitates daily functions of the media center, which include providing student support research training for programs (such as Galileo), providing students with up-to-date literature, supporting reading programs and competitions such as the Literary

Club and the Reading Bowl, giving assistance to for technological support of media center computers, and providing replacement parts for teacher technology hardware such as bulbs for projectors. The MCS also sponsors the Chess Club.

Media Center Clerk: Completes book check-ins and check-outs, receives payments for prints made by students, completes reports regarding overdue books, returns and places literature in the correct locations, and completes laminating.

Digital Coach: Facilitates student sign-in passwords and accounts for Google Apps for Education, completes professional development workshops for faculty and staff, maintains school website.

The current status of the center is that it operates days in which Apalachee High School is in operation. This is including pre-planning days, which ran 5 days before the school opened to students for classes, and for occasional literary meets and a Reading Bowl that is hosted once a year. The Media Center is open approximately 190 days in a calendar year.

Center Activities

Faculty and Student Awards Breakfast: Held once a month - the event awards a faculty member and students nominated for academics, athletic participation, and commitment. The awards are presented by the Athletic Director. The event is invite only for students and parents. All teachers are welcome to the event.

Student Clubs: Interact Club, International Club, and National Honor Society all use the resource center to hold meetings and ceremonies. Typically these clubs meet in the Media Center once a month after school. Chess Club, which is organized and sponsored by the MCS, holds open matches after school every Wednesday.

Peer Leadership: Once a month the students of the school identified as peer leaders work with special needs students from both Apalachee High School and Haymon-Morris Middle School. The activities include helping special needs students with homework or having conversations and inquiries.

Staff Development/ Staff Meetings: The resource center is utilized for staff development and meetings regarding a range of topics related to instructional practice. Meetings, when conducted, are done throughout the day to accommodate planning periods. There are four periods in a school day at Apalachee High School.

Computer Lab: The center has 28 computers; 26 are for teacher or student use. For teachers to use the Media Center computer lab with their classes, they must sign out the lab via a Google Calendar form with their county issued e-mail addresses.

Printing and Laminating: Restricted to teachers. Teachers leave items to be laminated by the Media Center Clerk to be completed.

Evaluation

The mission of the Media Center as described by the Media Center Specialist (MCS) is two-fold. That is, to provide teachers and students with technology resources and assistance as well as increase reader engagement among the student body. In regards to reader engagement, data collected from observations as well as information received from interviews indicates the resource center is successfully reaching that part of the mission. However, due to inefficient organization, a limited availability of technology resources, and network/hardware problems, the resource center’s goal of providing staff and students with technology resources and assistance is not successful.

Literary achievement goals are the main focus of the resource center and have provided students with opportunities to encourage readership among the students. In an interview with the MCS, it was stated that the circulation was up 5% from the year before. In observations of the Media Center, the claim appeared to be validated by the number of students using the resource center. In a two week period in September, the number of students observed in the Media Center in the morning ranged between 42 and 102. Below is a two-week window which ranged from September 10 – September 24.

8-Sep

9-Sep

10-Sep

11-Sep

12-Sep

13-Sep

14-Sep

15-Sep

16-Sep

17-Sep

18-Sep

19-Sep

20-Sep

21-Sep

22-Sep

23-Sep

7365

55

91 87

42

61 66

102

72 7356

1118 13 19

12 14 12 16 2011 11 15

Number of Students In Media Center SEP 8-23

Series1 Series2Series 1 – Total Students; Series 2 – Number of students using computers. Data was collected in mornings between 6:45AM and 7:25AM

It is noted that not all students were completing reading centered activities. Some of the students in the resource center each day would be playing games on computers and other simply talking to each other at the tables. However, even some of the users on computers were reading. The morning data also demonstrated an interesting trend: the number of students in the Media Center on Fridays was significantly higher than the rest of the week. The reason, based on observations those mornings, appeared to be because students were checking books out for reading over the weekend and were checking in books from the week before. This assumption was affirmed in an interview with the MCS at a later date.

An event took place prior to the data collection for morning resource center usage by students and should be noted in that it appeared to “open” the library up to the students who may not have been in it before. Earlier in the month of September, the MCS and Media Clerk placed over 1,200 books on large tables outside of the Media Center for students to take for free. Within two days, all books had been taken. The MCS explained in an interview that by doing that, he released space for new books to arrive that students wanted and got literature out of circulation that hadn’t been used in “several years.”

The process for requesting books is rather informal and possibly builds a relationship with students that can increase readership and circulation over time. If a student requests a certain piece of literature, the MCS and the student meet and discuss what the book is and what (if any) objections/concerns there may be. A student does not have to request a meeting with the MCS, but rather can walk into his office and engage in dialogue. During observations, several students walked into his office and asked about books to order.

In the afternoons, the number of students in the Media Center was significantly lower than in the mornings. The number of students in the afternoon ranged from 2 to 8 (on two of the days the Chess Club met and were not counted).

8-Sep

9-Sep

10-Sep

11-Sep

12-Sep

13-Sep

14-Sep

15-Sep

16-Sep

17-Sep

18-Sep

19-Sep

20-Sep

21-Sep

22-Sep

23-Sep

8

6

3 3

76

5

8 8

6

2

4

Student in the Media Center in the Afternoons

The reason for this difference appears to be significantly impacted by bus schedules. Some buses arrived to the High School as early as 6:50 (school day starts at 7:25). In the afternoon, the buses leave at 2:45 (10 minutes after the bell rings to end class time).

Although it was observed only once, a large number of students visit the resource center during lunch periods. There are five different lunch periods that run between the time of 11:02AM and 1:04PM. In an interview with the MCS, the number there are about 15-30 students in the Media Center during a given lunch period.

Unfortunately, factors outside of the control of this study limited the ability to collect data on the total number of students using the resource center for reading purposes. Limited staff and limited

availability for observations narrowed the window of quantitative data to be collected regarding reading. However, the information supplied in the form of quantitative data as well as observations supports the assertion that the resource center is increases readership among the students at Apalachee High School.

The technology in the resource center is significantly limited for class/student use, has hardware and software problems, and is organizational ineffectually. A questionnaire was sent via Google Forms to all faculty that signed out the Media Center’s Chrome Books and computer labs. The survey was sent out to these faculty members and not the entire staff because they would be the most knowledgeable as to the operational capacity and functions of the center as well as any issues that they had in using the or acquiring assistance in with the resources. Out of the 25 individuals the survey was sent to, 11 responded.

The first three questions and the data are listed below:

The responses indicate that teachers frequently use the resources for instructional purposes. Ultimately, data from the sign-out calendar indicates frequent use by the same faculty members. Although their responses reflect positive use of technology at the media center, their comments regarding issues appear to contradict the data above (Appendix Item B).

Availability of computers and Chrome Books appeared to also be an issue for some respondents – not being able to sign-out resources because they were already in use. For a two week span in

September in October, all computers in the Media Center were used for students to complete State of Georgia mandated college and career predatory work (Georgia College 411). There was no available access to the computers in the media center during this time. For another period in October, all computers and Chromebooks (as well as computer labs in the school) were dedicated to teacher evaluations – another State of Georgia mandate.

The Media Center has been open for instructional use for students and teachers for 14 weeks. Four of those fourteen weeks, the technology has been limited in some capacity (mainly for state mandated tasks). That means, 30% of the usage time has been restricted. This demonstrates a significant limitation for use of technology from the Media Center.

Many responses demonstrated a lack of working computers or enough for an entire class to use for each individual student. One responded stated that the number of Chrome Books was 28, while classes are up to 35 students in some. Others had similar sentiments in that neither the Chrome Books nor the Media Center were enough for their class sizes. Several comments were related to hardware problems, such as a weak Wi-fi connection or wireless connectivity being inconsistent. In one observation in the computer portion of the Media Center, a teacher commented that although there were 26 computers for her students to use, 2 were not able to connect to the internet and 1 had a mouse missing.

Furthermore, options to print were limited for students. It was observed on several occasions that when a student needed to print an item in color, they had to get a jump drive from the Media Clerk, the student had to save the file to the jump drive, then had to plug it in to their computer at the Media Clerk’s desk, and print it from that computer in order to get colored paper prints. Finally, all of the computers in the lab operate on Windows 2003 software. Many applications, especially those that require a user to download content or view content, cannot be used because the software is not workable. In one visit to the resource center, an attempt was made to download a PDF file to the desktop and there was not a workable software program that could be used to facilitate the download.

Many of these issues in regards to technology assistance and resources at the Media Center are compounded by an inefficient organization and lack of a formal procedure in place, specifically when there is an issue related to a hardware or software problem. The process for dealing with technical issues was described by the MCS and the Digital Coach in interviews as lacking a protocol. In observations in the Media Center, many teachers and students went to the Media Clerk for technology problems. Because the clerk was not trained in hardware or software issues, the person would relay the problem to the MCS. If the problem was related to the Chrome books, the students or teacher were referred to the Digital Coach for further aid. If the problem was related to a projector bulb or piece of hardware missing/broken, the MCS attempted to fix it. If the problem was unresolved, the issue was sent to the Information Technology Specialist. In an interview with the MCS, it was stated that a number of teachers, “directly contact the IT person for any or all hardware issues, even those relating to the Media Center.”

Recommendations: Based on the mission of the Media Center not fulfilling the mission of providing resources and assistance to teachers and students, a number of recommendations are made to significantly improve this resource center.

Increase the number of computers available in the lab portion of the resource center to 35. This will accommodate maximum class sizes.

Increase the number of Chrome Books and carts available for teachers to sign out. This will also alleviate pressure brought upon by mandates that require technology to be used.

Update software on all computers in the Media Center so as to facilitate basic functional aspects such as downloads.

Create an organizational chart to send out to teachers, other faculty members, and administrators detailing the correct contact method and information for technology and/or software issues.

Increase Wi-fi strength and availability throughout the school to improve the functionality of the Chrome Books.

Appendix

Item A

Observation Checklist__________ Number of students__________ Number of staff__________ Number of computers in use__________ Number of people reading__________ Number of requests to the media clerk or media specialist__________ Number of technology issues/ requests

Were students using the computers for educational reasons? If not, describe:

Student’s use of technology based on SAMR Model (circle) ---- S M A R

Was purpose of technology instructional or for mandated reasons?

Were books being used for instructional, research, or pleasure?

Any other notes regarding observation:

Appendix B

Appendix C

Standard Interview Questions:

What is your position? What are your qualifications? What kind of training do you receive? What is your goal in your given setting or position? How do you aid in student achievement or goals of the resource center? What is your criteria for evaluating effectiveness? How do you self-evaluate? What are your hours of operation? What events take place in this setting? What kind of requests are received from teachers and students?

Appendix D

Example of a report sent to Program Administrator – Daily during observations