Libraries

Some of my best memories from my youth are of going to the library. My younger brother and I would walk from school to the Great River Regional Library in St. Cloud - a building that, from the outside, looks cold and industrial, but on the inside is cozy and FULL of books! Every Wednesday we got this treat - our mom had bowling, and so could pick us up "in town"; so rather than having to take an hour-long bus ride home, we got to go to the library.
When I grew up and moved out on my own, I discovered the St. Paul Public Library system. As a new mom living in the Midway, I toured all of the libraries that were in walking and biking distance from my house - and there were a few of them! My favorite was the small Hamline branch, which had puzzles for my daughter to play with and child-height shelves; and a great fiction section for me.
Now I live in Washington County, where the branches are far spread, and extremely diverse. The beautiful, immense Woodbury branch is nice, but the kids can get lost if I'm not careful. There is an updated Stillwater Library, which we discovered for the first time yesterday - it was a great way to spend an hour while my daughter was at hockey practice, but I had to ask a librarian for directions to the fiction section - it's that big!
Our absolute favorite library is the tiny, unattractive, in-an-out-dated-strip-mall branch that is a short drive from home. The hours are bad and getting worse, the selection is limited...but the librarians know our names, the computers work well for searching and placing holds, the programs are fun, and the hold shelf is kept up-to-date. For my kids, it's the destination of choice ("What do you want to do today?" "Go to the library!" - music to my ears!).

Internet Reliance

I didn't know how much I used the internet until something went wrong with mine at home. It happened one day two weeks ago - one moment I checked my email, the next minute I was unable to look up my daughter's vocabulary words on her teacher's website. We live in the boonies and have to be plugged into a phone jack. I called the phone company (which must remain unnamed - but I think it's the only one??) - together, we deduced that it was a faulty DSL modem. Since we had purchased our original one from the company, we decided to get another from them.
I waited eagerly for the day that the new modem would arrive. Each day before leaving work I would check my online calendar, the only place in which all of our evening errands were recorded. I would check, then double check, my email, which I admit I read too often. Two Thursdays went by without a chance to watch Survivor online (this was sort of a good thing - then I could watch two at one time!). An old friend invited me to be a friend on Facebook...but I couldn't access it from school or home so I couldn't accept.
Then the day arrived - we got a new modem in the mail. Unfortunately, it didn't work either! A technician was called, and a Saturday appointment was made - right in the middle of an important event that the kids were participating in. Priorities... It turns out that there was something wrong with the connection to our house - I don't really get it, because the phone worked fine.
So now it works great - in fact, our old, original one is hooked up and we didn't have to purchase a new one after all. Another great piece of information - it has some sort of wireless-ness to it as well, so the wireless router that I bought and hooked up is now unnecessary.
So now I'm caught up on Survivor, I've added my "friends", checked my email (there must be something wrong with it - nobody has emailed me in a full 24 hours), know where the kids need to be delivered and when, and I get to BLOG again!

Not a fan.

I tried out Facebook - I admit, I was curious, and it does seem to be a little more "grown up" than MySpace. But I can't really see the point. I keep trying and slowly my friend list is growing, but it's mostly people who either I see on a daily basis (and therefore can make fun of for the updates I get about their lives), or people I don't see often for a reason! If I want to know something about a friend, I'll call or email. It feels very strange to broadcast to everyone who's a friend of a friend what I'm doing or who I'm talking to. And the strange things that come up: plants, causes, games...and then the warning: if you try to do this, you are giving access to all of your settings and your friends settings - it seems very extreme. Definitely not a fan.

Introducing kids to technology

In addition to my duties as science teacher extraordinaire (????) I teach a section of Technology Enrichment each day. My qualifications for this task? I like computers, dabble in technology on a regular basis, and am able to convey my knowledge to the students in such a way that they understand and can practice it.
My latest idea, to introduce the kids to Google Docs, had me a little scared at first. The first time I tried it, many of the kids were unable to create a Google account. One of the reasons why is that they had no idea what their school email address was, even though they check it regularly. But I couldn't figure out why so many kids kept getting a circular verification, and were unable to see or contribute to the document that I had created and sent to each of them.
After further reflection, I thought maybe I had invited too many people to contribute to the same document, so I split up the class and invited them in three groups. I also made a little "advertisement" with some of the perks of Google Docs included in the document that I shared, so the kids knew what they were doing. It worked much better - and many of the more advanced students created new docs and sent them to their classmates, leaving me out!
The next day, during Science class, we went to the computer lab to start doing research for a disease project. Some of the kids from Technology are also in Science, and they created Google Docs for the project - trying to keep track of websites, starting an outline...so they could work on it at home as well. SUCH as great application!