Module+1

Discussion Postings

=**Week 1**=

My name is Jason Wong

Currently I am on the TOC list of two private schools and volunteering at an elementary school library in the Vancouver School District. I am hoping (fingers crossed) my application to Richmond will bear some fruits.

My past 6 years of teaching experience has been overseas in China (Dalian and Shanghai) and in Turkey (Ankara). This included a Specialist assignment along with Grade 3, 4, and 5 classroom teacher.

My library experience has been since September of last year as a volunteer in an elementary school library as I was taking LIBE 461 and 463.

I have taken 3 school library courses last term and taking 2 this term. UBC has allowed me to transfer 2 courses from SFU so only 3 more to go!

My interests in the school library is making it a place where students, staff, and the larger community can experience the joys of literature in a variety of ways whether it be reading books, participating in reader’s theatre, doing research, socializing, or learning skills, etc. My strengths are my willingness to be a lifelong learner and be a support for others through collaboration.

All technical services are carried out by the district. Any software or hardware issues are handled by a tech support representative sent by the school district to the school.

The Teacher-Librarian is responsible for cataloguing and processing new resources. If the resource is not in the system, it has to be sent to the School District to be processed before it can be entered into the system by the Teacher Librarian at the school level.

The school uses the Horizon Library Management system and it is district wide.

The district resources available to Teacher-Librarians
 * The VSB Online Library Cataloge [|webcat.vsb.bc.ca]
 * [|Databases page for VSB electronic resources]
 * [|Bibliographies and booklists]
 * [|Online Curriculum Publications Catalogue]
 * VSB Teachers' Media Catalogue

The district has a Media and Library Services office at the school board office, but is limited and sometimes takes a long time to get a reply. Library and Media Services does have some centralized resources, such as ipads that are available for short term loan, kits and French resources

My expectations is to become more familiar with the best way of organizing resources for learning. Also, I am expecting that the activities and assignments will provide me with hands-on and real-life experiences of what it takes and how to organize resources for learning, enjoyment, and ease of use.

I am looking forward to all of you who have experiences working in a school library. =**Week 2**=

// Activity // //If anyone has any positive, negative or humorous stories that deal with your attempts to convert to the digital world, please post them on the LIBE 465 Discussion page. //

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Converting to the digital world is not as easy as it sounds. I started to create a class webpage that contained the newsletters, homework, and other information about the class on Weebly. I began putting all my planning documents on Googledocs allowing me access at home and at work without lugging binders back and forth. I began to use Youtube to supplement limited resources as a result of teaching at International schools. Finally, I decided to go paperless for homework with the students. This was all good until China and Turkey decided to block these websites and denied access. A lesson learned, the cloud is a wonderful place along with technology, but can also be a hindrance and annoyance if the connection is too slow or blocked by the school, district, or countries firewalls.

//<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #47539b; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 50%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Activity // //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 50%;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Read carefully through the statement on "Access" and determine how committed you are to this concept. This concept can be applied anywhere across a school system and, for our purposes, in a school library or in a classroom. It can even be applied at the Provincial level by the Ministry of Education. You might also consider how cutting back on the time given to Teacher-Librarians will have an impact on access to resources. Post your comments on the LIBE 465 Discussion Forum. // <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All learning resources in a school or district are important components in the school/district educational program. When deciding where and how learning resources should be organized, located, and stored, those involved in these decisions must ensure that the resources are easily accessible by staff and students. The format, cost, and number of learning resources, as well as the personnel and facilities available, will be factors in these decisions.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Access, as defined by Apple’s Dictionary is “a means of approaching or entering a place, using or benefiting from something, or retrieving information stored in a computer’s memory.” This definition parallels the three types of access in this lesson - intellectual, physical, and digital. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Presently, I think intellectual access should be flexible as the main goal of the library is to promote and advocate the “free flow of information and access to learning resources. I would place limits on the number of books allowed to be taken out at a time, but flexible with overdue books. I believe that eventually, by the end of the year, these books will be returned. On the other hand, if the student doesn’t return the resources, other students will not have access to them. Most of the time, these books have multiple copies so there isn’t much of an issue. Of course, since I am not operating my own library at the moment, budget and replacement cost of lost books is not a concern. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Physical access depends on the resource. Textbook sets can be located in the classrooms along with teaching resources specific to that Grade. If this is the case, the TL should have an idea of where the resources are located in case another teacher could find the resource useful. I like the idea of district held materials for more expensive and less used resources. This will enable the purchase that would otherwise be too expensive at the school level. Most school districts have regular mail delivery and pickup that would allow the ease of access between schools. I think it is appropriate to provide limited access to materials that may be too mature for younger students. In the library I am currently volunteering at, the mature Grade 7 books are easily accessible but located behind the circulation desk. I really like the idea of mixing different types of resources into the collection. This gives the opportunity for students to take out the movie and book of the same title or subject. Making efficient and effective use of volunteers and library monitors can increase access to the media center that does not require the active participation of the TL. Centralized resources means that the TL must be ready for the Media Center to be a hub of activity. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Digital access is continuing to become more and more important as technology becomes prevalent in the lives of our students. Unfortunately, there are still families who do not have access to the Internet or computers at home. I’d like to focus my discussion or the importance of digital access at school. One of the best developments is WiFi. This allows for the flexibility of digital resources and doesn’t cost much more to install it to the current network. Many classes can use a limited number digital devices through mobile laptop carts in the classroom that can free up space by eliminating the fixed computer lab. In addition, many students have their own devices (ipods, ipads, netbooks, etc) that would allow access and learning throughout the school. Of course, security and appropriate use will need to be monitored and discussed. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I believe I am committed to the concept of access to the Media Center for activities other than reading and research. At this time, I will give the benefit of the doubt that, with education and creating the correct environment, the community can act in a respectful and responsible manner. If I ever start working as a TL in my own Media Center, these dreams and aspirations may just become that. But with perseverance and dedication, anything is possible right?

=**Week 3**=

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 50%;">//<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Consult the help pages of search engines and directories, such as Google, ( [|__www.google.com__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) Yahoo ( [|__www.yahoo.com__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) and DMOZ (The Open Directory) ( [|__www.dmoz.org__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) to explore how each engine/directory determines relevancy ranking. Post reflections about new information you learn about this process on the discussion forum. //

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Did you know that there are express services for commercial directories to get your site on their directories quicker? From talking to people who do a lot of work on the internet and develop websites, there are ways to manipulate the ranking system in order to improve your place. From setting up other squatting websites that link to the actual website, meta tagging, identifying key words and phrases to attract the ‘spiders’ are just a few methods. Do you know of any others?

Google uses a Patented system called PageRank developed by Stanford University. According to Wikipedia, is a link analysis algorithm names after Larry page that assigns a numerical weighing to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, with the purpose of measuring its relative importance within the set. (whatever that means). This is done using “Googlebots” which visits a page, copies the content and follows the links from that page to the pages linked to it, repeating the process over and over until it has crawled billions of pages on the web. Then Google processes these pages and creates an index and parceled into manageable section and stored across a large network of computers around the word.

A user that enters a search determines the most relevant sections listed in a results page from the keywords that has been entered. Did you know that 31% of people enter 2 word phrases into search engines, 25% of all users look for 3 word combinations and only about 19% of them try their luck with only a single word?

Even though this is the case, the most relevant searches are those sponsored by advertisers who pay money to have their webpage appear at the top of the relevancy ranking.

After searching around, there are sites that give you tips on how to increase your ranking. They include:
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Keywords
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">HTML <HEAD> Content
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><Title> Tag
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><Meta Description> Tag
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><Meta Keyword> Tag
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Content
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">HTML Code Page
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Search Engine Basics
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Do not overdo it, but do everything you can


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank__] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://googlerankings.com/basic.php__] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tech.html__] **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Yahoo

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">According to the Yahoo Help site, Yahoo! Search results are ranked based on a combination of factors. One factor is how well the page contents match the search query. This query is a complex texts analysis which examines the relationships and contexts of the words in the document - the full text content and the content of the pages that link to the page.

There isn’t much, if any, information of how the actual algorithm work. Unlike Google, your submission to Yahoo’s Web directory is an important part of its ranking system. The place where your website places in relevance seems to be dependent on the price you pay to Yahoo. It seems, just like with Google, money talks. If you haven’t made it to Yahoo Web Directory, you need to wait for an extensive period before you get to Yahoo SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). You need to shell out 299 dollars, every year, to stay in Yahoo Web Directory. You can submit your site to Yahoo Web Directory for free as far as informational sites are concerned. You need to keep in touch with Yahoo editors to get your site in.

Yahoo algorithm is almost the same as Google algorithm. But Yahoo’s web directory is quite a part of its ranking algorithm. - The title of your website must contain your major keywords. The title is the biggest ranking factor of Yahoo's raking algorithm! - The description you give when submitting to yahoo web directory should include your major keywords, however don't try to repeat them too much. - Click Popularity is part of Yahoo's Algorithm, Google doesn't put much on that to determines one website ranking. The more visitors click on your website from Yahoo SERP's, the more you'll get close to the Top Ranking. - The category you are listed in Yahoo Web Directory should (if possible) contain some keywords. This plays a little with the ranking. - Site-wide linking. Its a choice you have to make, you can get one link per domain in order to rank well on google search engine but you can also get a lot of site-wide linking from other site, Yahoo loves it.


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://forum.triphp.com/threads/yahoo-ranking-algorithm.18257/__] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&y=PROD_SRCH&locale=en_US&id=SLN2204&impressions=true__] **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">DMOZ.ORG **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">DMOZ.ORG is a human edited directory of the Web that works on processing submissions, resolving dead links, culling out the bad and keeping only quality information, and discovering new topics to add. Unlike Google, Yahoo and other Search Engines, it is a Web directory that lists and categorizes websites.

In order to suggest there are several steps:
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Determine whether a site is appropriate for submission
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ensure that the site isn’t already listed
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Identity the single best category for the site
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Once the category has been selected, suggest URL


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.dmoz.org/help/submit.html__] **