Painless Publishing

Sheree Weiffenbach
Lowndes Middle School
Valdosta, GA

At the recent GaETC Conjference the presenter, Janice Casey, presented ideas for promoting the school’s media program to teachers, students and the public. One suggestion was to use a planning calendar to decide what events the Media Center would celebrate and/or publicize. She planned what she was going to do each month. I believe this is a good idea and I plan to incorporate some of her ideas to promote my Media Center program.

One month she had a family night event planned in conjunction with the schools “meet the teacher” night. I took this idea and a ½ hour before the next PTO meeting we opened our Media Center. The parents could meet the media staff and check out books or take Accelerated Reader tests with their children. She also suggested recognizing teachers during another month. At my school, I recognized the reading teacher whose class had the most Accelerated Reader points for the first semester. The teacher received a gift certificate to a local restaurant. Another way I recognized teachers was to give out ice cream coupons to the teacher’s whose homeroom had turned in all of their library books. During another month, she suggested celebrating cultural awareness. In our Media Center students filled out a crossword puzzle of Accelerated Reader Black History titles. Three correct student puzzles were drawn and the students received prizes.

She suggested using different tools to promote your Media Center using a theme for the year. She created flyers, coupons, and bookmarks to use throughout the year. To promote our theme of “Travel the world in a book” we created a bookmark with our theme on the front and a place on the back for students to write names of books. We created and distributed a flyer advertising our book fair to the parents whereas before we only sent out the leaflets from the company. As a part of my orientation at the beginning of next year, I plan to create a newsletter with Media Center rules to send home to the parents of our students.

The presenter showed us several tools in the Microsoft Office Suite that she used to create her bookmarks, magnets, door hangers, and certificates to promote her Media Center. She gave everyone a CD with the Microsoft templates of bookmarks, door hangers, and certificates. In conclusion, the presenter presented many great ways to promote your Media Center and I will definitely use some of the ideas.

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