The SurRural Librarian

A day that would make the IT department’s collective hair stand on end. Good thing I’m the IT department.

My 5/6 students have been obsessed with Mac’s Dashboard, to a fault. We are an all Mac/Tiger school, and the students love Dashboard for the way it works and all the cool tools that are available on it. But it’s a distraction at times, and the ESPN scores are particularly non-instructive.

So to encourage their enthusiasm, but also get control over the situation, we had Dashboard day. Everyone signed a contract agreeing to only using dashboard during particular times of day (breaks) and only having pre-approved widgets on their dashboard. In return, I gave them a list of widgets that they could install at will. I found the most educational widgets I could (some really neat stuff!), told them to get rid of the ESPN widget, and let them loose.

Yes, I allowed them to install software on the computers.

I’m well aware that this would make many IT guys faint. But in this circumstance, there was really little cause for worry. Widgets just install into home directories, they’re tiny little applications, there are no Mac viruses to speak of, and I had tried them all out ahead of time. The value of having the students engage with the computers this way was so valuable that I had no qualms about letting go of a little control. And like I said, any fallout would be mine alone to deal with.

They loved it. They loved the NASA photo of the day and the morse code translator. They immediately figured out how to have the computer speak the morse code, at one point the room was filled with zany computer-voiced “dot dash dots”.

I loved seeing how excited they were about some seriously dorky applications. I loved how they helped each other figure out how things worked. We had a great conversation about why certain widgets took longer to work than others (they immediately guessed that some were getting info from the internet, while others weren’t). We discussed reliable information sources, and I showed them how we can make our own widgets (I made one for our schools RSS feed.)

I’ve heard from parents that kids came home and showed them how to find new widgets for their home computers. And I’m sure that ESPN widget is getting use there too.

My list of widgets on del.icio.us

I’ve been using my Amazon Wishlist to keep track of student requests. I linked it to our school’s website and lo and behold, three families have bought books from it for the school library in the past month. Woo hoo! Not only is it a treat to get books in the mail I didn’t know where coming, and get new books after my book budget is all spent, it’s also super having the families involved in supporting reading.

I put an acknowledgment bookplate in each and I promise their child will be the first to get their hands on it. I suggest parents donate books to honor their child’s birthday,  holidays or TV Turnoff week. And I send a thank you note home. It’s a pretty easy and satisfying way to promote the library.

Speaking of free, here are two vendors offering free trials to their databases for National Library Week.

Greenwood: http://libraryweek.greenwood.com/
Thompson Gale: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/libraryweek

Teachers College at Columbia University if offering a free copy of the Spike Lee documentary “When the Levees Broke” along with curriculum for high schools, colleges and adult learning programs.

You can sign up here to receive your materials.

I work in a rural town with no broadband internet. The only choices the families have for internet at home is dial-up and satellite (which is crazy expensive).

These photos of the first students to receive their laptops through the One Laptop Per Child program are inspirational, to say the least.

You know, I’ve heard many say Why in Nigeria but not in the U.S.? or Why laptops rather than food/medicine/infrastructure? Valid questions, but you just can’t deny the powerful messages these photos impart. I wish I had been in this room at this moment.