Toor, R., & Weisburg, H.K. (2007). New on the job: A school library media specialist's guide to success. Chicago: American Library Association. ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-0924-9.

Internship Documents

Checklist (for your benefit)
Internship Guidelines (Syllabus)
Internship Preliminary Contract
Criminal Background Check: see WebCT/7460
Internship Final Contract
Documentation Rubric
Mentor Evaluation (online) (this version will move soon)
Mentor Evaluation (Word version)
E-permission (use WebCT dropbox)
System Specifics (special instructions for Gwinnett, Forsyth): see WebCT/7460

Classroom Demographic Summary (use WebCT dropbox)

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Graduation Resources

GaETC (Georgia Educational Technology Conference) - November 4-7, 2008, Atlanta
http://www.gaetc.org/

2009 Children's Services Annual Conference, Macon, usually February
http://www.georgialibraries.org/lib/child.html

40th Annual
Children's Literature Conference, UGA
Spring 2009
http://www.coe.uga.edu/gcba/


GLMA Summer Institute, Macon, June
http://www.glma-inc.org/ 

ALA Annual Conference, June
http://www.ala.org/

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FAQs about the Internship

What is a "project"?
This requirement is very loosely defined, by design.  It can be any related set of actions that make a contribution to your hosting media program.  It is not necessary that you are in on the beginning, or that you complete it, because some are ongoing and will take more time than you have.  It should be something that you can work on when you come to the media center and the mentor is tied up or has nothing else for you to do.  Many interns choose to do collaborative units as projects because they potentially include several internship requirements. Other examples:  a cataloging or organizational project; a reading promotion program; coordinating an author visit; preparing for a renovation or move; preparing a technology product for use in the media center. 

How does the internship in school media centers fit into the program for people who are currently teaching (and might have trouble juggling classroom duties with internship hours)?
We give students a great deal of flexibility in choosing the time, location, and duration of their internships. The hour total is only 100, and students can take up to a year to complete it (while registering just once). Also, the hours need not be contiguous or even in 8-hour chunks.   While it is a challenge and may cause individuals to lose some holidays, most are able to manage given the choices they have. Teachers have less difficulty, in fact, than people who work in business with few vacation or sick days.

You mentioned documenting the internship in a table of sorts. Could you elaborate on this?
The purpose of such a table would be to simplify everything. I was envisioning a 2-column table, with one skinny column of the AASL competencies (at the 1.x level) and a wider column with your summarized evidence of accomplishment. 

May I use post-planning, summers, and/or pre-planning as opportunities to build up intern hours?
It may be tempting to use summer work opportunities to rack up a number of internship hours, since most of you have more free time during the summer.  However, working in a media center while students are not in attendance is nothing like working during the regular school year. Therefore, we limit the number of hours you may work when students are not present to a single day (8 hours).  Summer school, obviously, is an exception to this, provided that full media services are offered.

What do I do if there is no media committee meeting at my primary site?  Can I count a county level meeting as fulfillment of this requirement?
This has to be a building-level media or technology meeting.  A county level meeting will not satisfy this requirement.  We have had a number of interns report that their primary sites conduct these meetings via email, or the schedule of the meeting renders attendance impossible.  If this is the case, seek out a meeting at one of the other sites you will visit.  As a last resort, if you work in a school, you may attend a media or technology committee meeting there.  (Note:  if you are in a school where these meetings take place via email, you may want to discuss this process with your mentor and reflect on it in your documentation.)

When should I register for EDIT 7460?
Register for EDIT 7460 in the semester you plan to complete your Internship.  When you first initiate your Internship (or possibly before), you will be entered into the WebCT/7460 class and given a discussion board for your private use.  Even though you have been put into the Internship class on WebCT, you should wait to officially register until the semester you are confident you will complete your Internship.  You will remain in WebCT / 7460 throughout the entire process, over multiple semesters if necessary.

Additional registration notes:

• Register for the section under my name.
  
• Register for 3 hours.
• You should be registered for something in each semester of intern work.