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.

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2004 – Podcasting “invented” (according to Wikipedia… remember Adam Curry?).

2005 – The New Oxford American Dictionary names “podcast” as word of the year.

2005 – K12 Handhelds hosts their first podcasting workshops.

2007 – First generation iPhone introduced.

2007-2009 – K12 Handhelds produces and publishes Mashups podcast (and does lots and lots of podcasting workshops).

2010-ish (?) – K12 Handhelds does their last podcasting workshops. (Around this same time, someone brings a “podcasting is dead” article headline to one of my sessions.)

2014 – Serial podcast is produced. Podcasting surges in popularity.

2017 – Podcasts are bigger than ever (though people still don’t know exactly what one is and use the term incorrectly).

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The most success has been with community projects I work on like our local seed library. Our community members have rich experiences and are adept at sharing, being both learners and teachers, and being lifetime learners.

This weekend, we had a series of cooking workshops as a part of our Creativity in a Box library grant project. I was a little dismayed to see that several of the folks who signed up were, in my mind, accomplished cooks. What could I offer them??

It was a great day though. Everyone learned some things (including me) and also offered up some things to others. We had multiple generations (from age 11 to in their 70s), and no one had any ego. It was a model of how learning should be in my mind.

And for me, personally, it stood out as an example of how much my own facilitation skills have evolved. I can barely stand up in front of a group and “teach” anymore — it just doesn’t seem authentic (or effective). Facilitation of events like this though is beginning to feel natural. (Of course, there are the occasional events when there is a group that doesn’t engage; I still don’t know how to handle that.)

I think this kind of multi-generational peer learning has great application to some of the rural community building work I’m doing as well. It might even be the key to beginning to discuss and address some of our large national challenges.

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The marshmallow activity involved building towers with mini-marshmallows and toothpicks. Before beginning, we talked about the design process and how real-world engineers begin  by planning and designing. We also brainstormed what might make for a good tower (strong base) and different shapes we might make (with triangles being one of the strongest structures).

Both designing and working in groups while building proved to be good learning processes for students. While some groups followed their designs relatively closely, one student proclaimed “This doesn’t look anything like what we drew!”

The digital photo challenge is always a favorite, and this group took some amazing photos.

In the afternoon, grade 3-5 students made Rube Goldberg-style contraptions incorporating simple machines.

Again, we emphasized the design process with planning, building, and iterating. Students began by working in small groups to design what they planned to build by drawing it.

Working on a design challenge in a group was also a learning experience for these students. Figuring out which person would do which task and how the different parts would fit together were real word tasks which will benefit these students later on. Some groups worked well together, while others didn’t.

In the building phase, students were given a set of materials which included a piece of posterboard, Play Doh, tongue depressors, popsicle sticks, dominoes, marbles, a bell, paper cups, cardboard tubes, cardboard, string, pipe cleaners,tape, and glue. With these materials, they were to build a chain reaction style contraption (think Mouse Trap) that incorporated simple machines, such as inclined planes, pulleys, levers, and  wheels.

The chain reactions were to start with the drop of a marble with the end goal of ringing a bell. Students could not touch anything in between, and the goal was to have at least five steps in the process.

About midway through the process, students were given the opportunity to present their work and to reflect on what they were most proud of, what their biggest challenge was, and what work they still needed to do. Other students gave input and suggestions.

Some of my take-aways from the day:

• Children, even very young ones, are incredibly capable.
• Working with a group of 15 students was much more productive (for them and for us) than with all 30. (For the morning group, a limited number of cameras prompted us to divide into two groups and switch between that and making cards.)
• If I did the contraption activity again, I might rethink it a little and/or provide more examples. Students didn’t entirely understand the chain reaction idea and fitting in simple machines (other than the inclined plane) was a little contrived.
• Don’t use Play Doh on carpet (even if students are working on tables).
• I need more work on managing group dynamics. (We had several groups that couldn’t/wouldn’t work together, even though they chose their own groups. For a few, I ended up just letting them regroup or work alone.)
• The random variations of the day can make a big difference.
• Modeling different kinds of activities like these can be valuable professional development for teachers.

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We’ll see what kids come up with at this Thursday’s Kids Maker Day!

It’s fun to design an activity that has no “right answer.” In fact, I don’t even know how I’d go about this!

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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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