We tried multiple things including phone, text, and email tech support; “Tiny Tech Tip” postcards, and video explainers. The first two of these were lightly used but much appreciated when they were.

For the videos, we initially did an hour-long Facebook “Ask Me Anything-Library Edition.” It was very lightly attended (due we imagine, to the usual synchronous scheduling challenges), but full of a lot of good content. Mostly we answered questions that had previously been often asked. We hoped that this content would be able to be rewatched later, but it didn’t really lend itself to that, in part due to the long, unsearchable format and also to Facebook’s format.

So instead of doing another one of these, we decided to instead to a series of preproduced, very short (2-3 minute) tech explainers on popular topics. These seem to be much more useful both now and into the future.

From a production standpoint, these were made initially as recorded Zoom sessions and then edited together with other graphics as needed. We hosted them on both Facebook and YouTube. The Facebook analytics were very good. We anticipate that the YouTube versions will be able to be used well into the future as questions arise.

While these are no substitute for sitting down side-by-side with someone and addressing their unique problems (which is what we did pre-COVID), this do seem a useful resource to have.

Tech Explainer Videos

Placing holds for books to be delivered to your branch

Borrowing ebooks and audiobooks from the library

(This video shows how to do this from the web site, which works for the Kindle Paperwhite as well as other devices.)

Accessing more ebooks and audiobooks through partner libraries

Using Libby to check out ebooks and audiobooks

(This works with devices that can install Android or iOS apps, as well as the desktop.)

Getting photos from your smartphone to your desktop

Making a web page

(This video gets you started on the basics of two simple ways to make your own web page.)

More information here (pdf)

This project is supported by the Arizona State Library, Archives & Public Records, a division of the Secretary of State, with federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

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It was a well received project. And then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and all in-person programming at libraries was put on hold indefinitely.

For most, including those at schools, there was a relatively quick pivot to online instruction, but that wasn’t feasible for a program like this that was focused on those with very low tech skills. Our work before the pandemic had been successful largely because we sat down with people one on one and worked with them on their specific questions and problems on their own devices.

So we were asked to reconfigure the program to do other but related work.

Ultimately, we decided on a split focus, including a continued tech learning program and a low- or no-tech creativity program. The tech learning program has included phone and email tech support, as well as some Facebook video segments. The uptake on this has been light as we expected, but much appreciated when it has been done.

The creativity program took the form of a Creativity Club for Adults that could be done remotely with little or no technology. This six week program has included activities like postcard making, rock painting, and doodling. Each week includes a short video, as well as related resources and activities. This has been well received and distributed primarily through Facebook.

One nice side benefit of this program is that has allowed us to connect to other library work like our Creativity in a Box kits.

I am also encouraged about the opportunity to continue to use and remix the content of this program for other purposes.

This work wouldn’t have been possible without all I learned from my CLMOOC friends. Without those experiences, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to try this.

I greatly appreciate our local libraries, and like others, their work has been made much more challenging during this unique period. While our libraries closed for several months during the pandemic, they continued to offer wifi, as well as ebooks and other electronic services throughout. Now they have begun curbside service and some other limited services by appointment. I appreciate that they are being cautious about full openings.

I hope that our libraries continue to be supported, because they are cornerstones of our communities.

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The Digital Literacy Center project was geared to increasing digital literacy skills for a primarily adult audience of traditionally under-served community members, including senior citizens, homeless, and low income residents. Here are some highlights and findings from this work:

• We conducted 24 classes, as well as 37 individualized “drop in” tech help sessions, four school sessions, and seven train-the-trainer classes.
• The program was enthusiastically received with 98.9% of participants reporting learning something by participating in the program. 94.3% said they were more likely to participate in a similar library activity in the future.
• The audience served was very diverse, ranging from those with very basic technology skills to those with more advanced proficiencies. The most popular classes were those related to smart phones and small business marketing.
• The audience for the help sessions varied, but tended toward those with lower levels of technology proficiency. The most requested help topics were in using smartphones and recovering and managing passwords.
• There is a big demand for both formal tech classes and informal tech help. The range of skill levels and types of questions along with the high degree of variability in individual device configurations requires flexible and experienced staff to meet these needs.
• Through professional development that was offered (both formally and informally), the library staff not only gained new skills, but began to see themselves in a role to provide technical support and other non-traditional services. This was a huge move forward for the library and its patrons.
• The curriculum developed for this program will be used in other parts of the county in 2019-20.

The expansion of the Creativity in a Box work allowed us to put these boxes in more locations around the county, to conduct 15 creativity-oriented workshops (primarily but not exclusively for youth), and to create new “Workshop in a Box” kits.

As we increased the reach of the program, implementation fidelity varied. Not surprisingly, the closer we were to the implementation (e.g. facilitating events vs. supplying resources and materials to others to implement), the more successful the results were. (This is a reminder that “train the trainers” type models are challenging.) At times, it was difficult to get information back from larger libraries that were not under county management. Staff changes were also a challenge. In addition, larger libraries seemed to struggle more with non-traditional resources like these. More professional development and support could help with this.

One of the most successful kits was the “Photo Challenge” kit, which includes 10 digital cameras, instructions, and photo challenges for kids to complete. This workshop is super-easy to conduct and is one of the most popular with participants, who have ranged from ages 2 to teenagers and even parents. Another very popular workshop is tie dyeing.

Overall, the project was a success with over 600 people participating, and 84.5% reporting that they learned something by participating. Importantly, there are a large number of resources (including 24 “Creativity in a Box” kits, four “Workshop in a Box” kits, and refills of consumables for all of this) that will be available to the nine participating libraries for years to come.

Sustainability is always a big consideration in the grants we administer. It is important to us that the work that is put into a grant be able to continue on after the grant funding concludes. (For example, our Free Book Box project is still going strong a couple years after the initial funding cycle.)

For 2019-20, we have on tap a Mobile Technology Lab project that will make a mobile lab of laptops available to smaller rural branches and will also expand our offering of tech literacy classes and individual help sessions. We are also going to be doing another oral history project. The first work we did in this area was in Portal. This new work will be more extensive and involves another local community.

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The Creativity in a Box program that we started in 2016 in Portal was expanded county-wide. We are putting maker boxes in eight libraries around the country and will be doing workshops and producing “workshop in a box” kits for use in the summer of 2019.

We have also continued the oral histories that were a part of this original project. Enthusiastic volunteer support has allowed this work to continue beyond our initial grant funding. The community has been very appreciative of the collection we are building. We’re even talking about expanding this work to other nearby communities.

The funded stage of the Free Book Box project concluded in 2018 and was a great success. Now we are continuing the work through a combination of volunteer and county support. Book donations have continued to be strong, so we have no ongoing book costs. There are 10 of these boxes in our very rural county.

A new project that started in 2018 is a Digital Literacy Center at the Huachuca City Library. The goal of this project is to increase digital literacy skills through a series of learning opportunities provided to adults and teens in Huachuca City.

Funded through a grant, we are purchasing hardware, developing curriculum, hosting a series of workshops and drop-in sessions, and providing ongoing support for skills development. We are covering a huge breadth of technology skills from basic Internet use to social media to small business marketing.

This has been a fun project for me because it is a different audience than I usually work with. Most of our participants have been older folks with very basic tech skills, and their primary interest has been in mobile phone topics. As with every other project I work on, I’m learning a lot too.

We’re excited about 2019 with the opportunity to continue this work and to pursue new projects!

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Like the previous year’s Making and Sharing/”Creativity in a Box” project, this was funded by the Arizona State Library, Archives & Public Records, a division of the Secretary of State, with federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, through a grant that I wrote in partnership with our county library district.

The Free Book Box project is a variation on the “little free library” idea, except that our boxes are quite large and institutionally supported and maintained. Each box is approximately the size of a bathtub and holds about 150 books.

The idea for this came in part when our county’s book mobile had to cease operations. (It’s important to note, though, that these boxes in no way replace the book mobile.)

Our county is quite large (4 million acres or 6,219 square miles with a population of approximately 130,000) and has a number of rural communities that don’t have their own libraries. So we decided to install ten Free Book Boxes in the more rural parts of the county to enhance community access to books and reading materials, with each box housing a rotating selection of books for adults and children, in English and Spanish. One other difference with our boxes is that, while users are welcome to return or donate books, they don’t have to — all the books are free for the taking. Patrons are also invited to request books through comment cards in the boxes, though they aren’t “held” for specific individuals when they are added to the box.

Partnerships are a key part of this project. Partners have included the library system and various branches, schools, community organizations, and local businesses. For each box, we sought a community partner to help host, monitor, and stock the box, which was an important part of our sustainability plan. (We have hosts in place for some but not all the boxes.) In addition, we have had community artists paint each of the boxes.

The books for these boxes have come from a variety of sources. Some have been purchased (this was included in our grant), but we have also received tremendous donations. These have come from sources such as our libraries (discards, patron donations), Friends of the Library groups, a local college, and community members who have added books to the boxes. Again, this is going to be a key to the project’s sustainability.

As of today, we have installed seven of the ten boxes, and the others will be installed soon. The reception of this work in the community has been incredibly positive.

To date, we have distributed over 1,000 books with a goal to distribute over 3,000 in the first year.

This has been my favorite project of 2017, and I have every confidence that this work will continue long after the grant has ended.

The post Free books! appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

At a meeting this week, we put several things on the meeting tables, including lots of colored paper, cans of play doh, and legos. We gave no instructions for their use and had no “activities” using them. Just look what folks did with them — I’d call this a big success! (And it’s worth noting that the attendees at these meetings were mostly fairly high level non-profit executives and DC policy wonks.)

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The first two kits, Windowsill Garden/Microgreens and Paper Crafts, have been released.

And the next three kits, Audio Storytelling, Digital Photography and Digital Movie Making, will be released soon.

These kits have been well received, and I’m pleased with the ability to use them without necessarily having attended a workshop. Living in a place where access to services such as workshops or even libraries is limited and working with rural policy and issues of access, this is valuable.

I’m currently thinking about ways that this work could be spread to a larger audience. If you see an application of kits like this in your area, let me know.

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We worked with 30 grade K-2 students in the morning and another 30 grade 3-5 students in the afternoon.

In the morning, we started with the Marshmallow Challenge. No matter how many times I do this, I always have fun and learn new things. This was a young group and had the highest “completion” rate of any group I’ve facilitated yet — 7 of 8 groups had a tower standing at the end. One of my favorite parts was when we debriefed afterward, and I shared the fact that kids usually do better at this than well-educated adults. When I asked the kids why they thought this might be, one supposed it was because adults had larger hands that made it more difficult.

After this, we had the kids make puppets and do puppet shows as a storytelling exercise. I was a little worried about this activity, because I thought the kids might be too shy to do it. I was completely wrong — the kids jumped right in and were amazing. We provided very little structure or suggestions, which worked well. Kids worked with what they were comfortable with. Some used supplied images to make their puppets; others drew their own pictures. They self grouped and were eager to do puppet shows. I had allotted an hour for this, and we could have gone twice that long.

The last morning activity was to make books. We started with pre-folded booklets made with these instructions. (I had wondered if this size might be too small for lower elementary, but they were just fine.) Then the kids wrote their books. Some students chose to use mainly pictures, while others included words. After their books were done, covers were attached, and students decorated those as well. Again, students were excited about this activity and worked well with little direction.

In the afternoon with the older students, we did a game jam (the second one I’ve done). This time we started with a discussion of what the students favorite games were and then moved on to talk about what makes a game (space, components, mechanics, constraints, a goal, and FUN).

The students were asked to form teams and make their own games using the following supplied materials:

• Poster board
• 2 dice
• 2 golf balls
• 2 cups
• Misc pieces
• Misc cards

Other art supplies were also available. They were also given this handout to complete.

They jumped right into it and made some pretty amazing games. Highlights were a game that used cards based on math problems and some very thoughtful work of thinking through and writing down rules and other guidelines. And it’s always a thrill to me when kids ask if they can take their work home and then are so excited to do so!

After they made their games, we had each group show their game to the rest of the classes and then give feedback using the following prompts:

• I like…
• I wonder…
• I might suggest…

The students were really thoughtful about this, and it worked very well. We actually had to rush it a little because of time constraints. There was a little time for students to play each other’s games, but not enough time to iterate. This was discussed though as a part feedback. In the future, I might give less time to game design and creation and more time to critique and iteration.

The post Maker Day appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

Our local kids events have some interesting challenges, not the least of which is that we never know how many kids (and adults) will come, nor the ages of those kids. As such, the agenda is very flexible. Yesterday, we had the additional challenge of a new facility, which turned out not to work very well, especially because we had a record turnout of 28 folks (which was both good and bad). Next year we’ll need to find a new place to hold this event.

Here was the planned agenda:

9:00   Welcome and introductions, playing game. What’s your favorite game? What makes a game?
10:15  SNACK BREAK
10:45  Game jam challenge  (designing a game with supplied materials and constraints)
NOON  LUNCH
1:00   Design a game (You choose from options of computer games, board games, card games, outside games, or something else.)
2:00   SNACK BREAK
2:15   Design a game (cont.)
3:30  Share our games
3:45   Wrap up

Beginning with playing games was great. It’s always hard to get kids going on stuff, especially with a mix of ages and kids who don’t know each other. Having a variety of games laid out on the tables was a good way to begin and also provided a foundation for the discussion of “what makes a game?” The favorite games were Pictionary Junior and Battleship. There was also one kid who spent much of the day refining his chess game with Brad as a partner. It was also fun to watch kids make up their own variations on these games, especially adapting for different age levels.

This was also a good example of the “shared purpose” value in Connected Learning. Kids had the shared purpose of figuring out how to play a game, and this provided an opportunity to make new friends, get comfortable, and accomplish something together. From that, the whole day flowed.

Next we talked about what makes a game. This worked well as a guided discussion, and everyone participated. I wrote the components of a game up on the board and saw later that one child had dutifully copied down the same. Something that one kid insisted on for every question I asked was that games had to be “FUN!” Good point to remember.

After that, I’d planned to do a “hack tic-tac-toe” activity, but because of time and the challenge of having some very young kids that didn’t know tic-tac-toe, I decided to skip that activity. (Interestingly, later when I found the kids outside playing a spontaneous game of duck-duck-goose, we “hacked” that instead.)

Then we moved on to the best activity of the day, in which kids got into groups and designed their own games using a set of supplied materials. We supplied: two dice, four marbles, a piece of string, four paper cups, a bunch of cork “game pieces” of varying sizes, colored paper cards, round colored stickers, and a piece of posterboard. In addition, kids could use any of the crayons, colored pencils, markers, tape, glue, scissors, etc. that were there.

Kids were very creative with this activity. Some made board games with themes of natural disasters and buildings (a very rough take-off on Monopoly, but unrecognizably so). One group made a game that involved rolling marbles down a crack in the patio. Another designed a game that involved guessing which cup had a marble under it. Not all the games were finished due to facility issues, but the design process was successful, and lots of iteration happened.

In the afternoon, we had fewer kids; some had been there in the morning, and others were new. For the first time at this event, we had brought computers and had planned to do Minecraft, Flappy Bird at Code.org, and a few other things. There was one older kid who knew Minecraft so he worked with some others on that.

The others had a choice of playing more games, working on the game they were designing, working on one of the other computers, or finding something else to do.

What went especially well this year was marketing (we reached several new families including several who didn’t attend the accompanying adult event), the game jam in general, and the use of computers.

In terms of what I would do differently next time, I would like to have seen more of kids playing each other’s games followed by more iteration. (Logistical challenges made this difficult.)

I’m also thinking that next year we might do separate morning and afternoon sessions with the same activities. That way kids who only came to one half of the other would still have the opportunity to do the “best” activities. And kids who stay the whole day could either extend what they were doing or do other optional activities.

The post Game jam success! appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

For this year’s kids maker day, we’re going to try a game jam. Here is the rough agenda:

9:00   Welcome and introductions, playing game. What’s your favorite game? What makes a game?
10:15  SNACK BREAK
10:45  Game jam challenge  (designing a game with supplied materials and constraints)
NOON  LUNCH
1:00   Design a game (You choose from options of computer games, board games, card games, outside games, or something else.)
2:00   SNACK BREAK
2:15   Design a game (cont.)
3:30  Share our games
3:45   Wrap up

As you might remember from past years, we never know how many kids we’ll get or what ages they’ll be. In the past, we’ve had around 15-20 kids, aged 2 to 85.

My plan is to start with a bunch of games out everywhere, inviting kids to play with whatever they want. This will then lead into a discussion about favorite games, what makes a good game, and what a game is (hopefully leading to things like things like goals, rules/constraints, components, core mechanics, and spaces.)

Then we’ll have a structured game jam, where kids get in small groups (3-4) and are given specific materials and constraints, and told to make a game with the above elements. (I haven’t decided on the specifics of this challenge, nor on whether to require them to write out the rules.) Then we’ll play each other’s games and discuss. (I’m leaning against a more formal evaluation.)

In the afternoon, kids will be invited to design another game, but this time with no constraints. It could be a computer game, a board game, a card game, an outdoors game or something else. (I’m not quite sure the computer game thing is going to work because of time/resource constraints, but I’m willing to try it if the kids want.)

Any comments? I’d love to hear them.

As I’ve worked on this, I drew on the very helpful videos of Kevin Hodgson and Matthew Farber, which are posted below.

Other helpful resources are this Game Jam Guide from ??.

Stay tuned for more on this project as it develops.

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