Professional Listserv

I previously posted about the professional association MAME (Michigan Association for Media in Education). I am a member of MAME so I have been following their listserv since the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year. I think this is a great way to network and communicate with other media specialists in Michigan, and I’ve found many posts to be useful in my classroom. Unfortunately, you only have access to the MAME listserv if you are a member. One of the posts that I really loved applied to teaching students about Internet safety. There are a lot of resources out there to teach this, but I wanted to differentiate this lesson because I teach so many classes and students. The MAME post was shared by a media specialist in Clarkston, MI who was looking for other ways to teach children about Internet safety. The FBI created their own program for students in grades 3-8 to learn how Internet safety. In this post, the media specialist shared the website and also mentioned that her students really enjoyed this program. I tried it out for myself and found that my students also really enjoyed this, and didn’t even realize they were learning! 

A lot of the emails I get from MAME are about MeL databases and new things these databases have to offer. My school district subscribes to many of these databases so I really enjoy reading about any new things that have come out that I can use with my kids.

Many of the posts from MAME are other media specialists who are looking for advice on specific topics. One librarian was going to be working in a brand-spanking new library and wanted advice on the placement of certain things, such as her circulation desk. Others post about book recommendations for certain ages and much more.

Another topic that is posted about often are about conferences going on in Michigan that would be beneficial to media specialists. More recently, many have been posting job openings in different libraries around the state.

One post that just came up yesterday that I found to be very interesting, especially after doing the ethics assignment, was about identifying appropriate books for a diverse middle school population. In this post, the media specialist mentioned that while some books in the library would be appropriate for the older students in the building, they are not necessarily meant for the 6^th graders. The librarian then asked if anyone had ever done something such as an 8^th grade only shelf. I found this to be very interesting because in our ethics scenario assignment we talked about how librarians are here to serve all patrons and do not have the right to say whether someone can check a book out or not. What was even more interesting to me were the comments that followed this post. There were a handful of people who responded stating that we do not have the right to limit books from others. One person mentioned talking to parents and making sure they are playing an active role in monitoring their children’s book choices.

Overall I have found many useful posts from the MAME listserv. I do get a ton of emails every day, but I’ve found some to be beneficial to my teaching and awareness of issues happening in relation to libraries in Michigan.