KaLeah Hicks
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Communication

I believe communicating effectively with all stakeholders is an important information technology literacy skill.

Communicating with teachers, parents and students clearly and effectively is a skill I use often. Being able to convey a message, whether it's communicating our library rules to my students, maintaining the school website and digital signage, or sharing the history of our school with the community, is an important part of my job and I try to do so in a way that focuses on the message without being too visually overwhelming. Communicating with students in particular is an art that requires a balance of what's current and emphasis on the information. 

This video is the compliment piece to my ETEC ___ Technology Grant Proposal project. I saw my task as creating a multimedia piece that conveyed the key information about the proposal in way that was visually interesting and addressed the questions that viewers might have. 
When I took over the role of media specialist at my current job, one of my first tasks was to orient our teachers, students and parents with the resources we had available for students who were participating in the National History Day contest, which we locally refer to as History Fair. 

I chose to create a video that walked the stakeholders through the steps to begin the research task. Teachers were advised to show the video and discuss in class in order to optimize time in the library for research. I also posted the video on the library page on the school website so that parents had information about how to assist their students off campus.

Last year, I was asked to create a brochure that communicated the history, mission, goals and pertinent information about our campus to community stakeholders, business partners in education, and parents. This required me to condense and distill a lot of history into a digestible piece of writing and use Adobe Photoshop and InDesign create an information piece with graphics that were pleasant, but communicated a 'vintage' feel. 
Cedar Bayou Junior
​One Page
This is a short tutorial webpage I made for my student library aides using Adobe Spark Post. I needed to show them why and how we shelve books in a particular way. I gave them a written explanation and supported that with short videos I made using Spark Video and some longer Youtube videos that I thought were well done and matched our library scheme pretty well. I chose to give them different ways to access the information with the hopes that one would work for their learning style. 
Shelving Tutorial
These are examples of announcement graphics for students at both the high school and junior high school level. We used these on social media and digital signage and the school website for the junior high examples. I was a high school teacher for many years and one thing I had to work on when moving to junior high school was learning my audience. The junior high school graphics need to be very straightforward, whereas the high school graphics could be more humorous and contain more references to pop culture. I think knowing your audience and adjusting your messaging - no matter what type of communication is in question - is key. These were all made with Adobe Spark Post. 
Copyright © 2019 KaLeah Hicks
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Philosophy
  • Decision Making
  • Communication
  • Library Projects
  • Technology