Collaboration

So, Brenda and I have decided that we will do the collaboration on the Japanese Era and also put a bit of focus on plagarism. But, my only fear/concern is that not many people know anything about Japan/ese, how will a media specialist be able to help me with helping the kids do research on such a subject? Of course, with my help it can be done. But, it just seems that your average History teacher goes up to the school librarian and says, "I'm doing a project on Women's Rights, can you pool some books together for me?" And they get the books and the kids are all set to go. With Japanese, or even any world language, it's not quiet that simple. They generally don't have books that are specific to something like Japanese Era's. Although, I know this will get worked and there always the internet, but I don't want my students to forget that there are real books out there for them to look at and read. That Wikipedia is not all that it's cracked up to be. But, I know with the help of the school librarian, we can do this......successfully.

My thoughts...

When I first started teaching, we had a media specialist, but I honestly had no idea what her job was. I knew she checked books out to kids, helped them do research projects, but I never thought about asking her for help on my own lessons. Through out the years, I left that school and went to another school. However, the second school I went to, was inner-city and there just wasn't the resources for me, much less in the media center for the students. So, I just kinda dealt with it. Now that I'm in a different district, where the media specialists are more hands-on, I see what they do, aside from just dealing with books.
At the high school level, our media specialist is very involved in the IB program and the research that needs to go into it. I always see her helping other teachers and I see "collaboration" happening. I put it in quotes, because maybe there's more to it, than what I see or know at this moment.
I am a bit nervous, to be honest working with a classmate on this project. Luckily, she's been in the media specialist position. It's me that I'm worried about. I hope use the "media specialist" to the best of my ability and am able to collaborate and actually the lesson that we create in my classroom.
The plan right now, is the use my Japanese 4 class as the focus of the lesson. They do research on Japanese Eras and it's a project that I've always felt unsure about. I never thought what I did was enough. But, with my partner, I'm hoping to tweek it and work it out so that it a great project and beneficial to the students and that they learn from it.

Yay, I finally figured this out! I will get a picture up later today after school. I have expereince purely in the classroom of junior high and high school level. I'm excited about this collaboration, because my partner, Brenda has expereince in the media center. Please come back for more on our progress. Thanks.