I’m what some circles call a security wife – I think I’ve mentioned before that my husband is in information security.  Lately, I’ve been sucked into helping plan their conference in November, which has furthered my immersion into the whole field. Yes, a lot of it goes way over my head, but I know more than the Average Jane. So what am I taking away from all of this to use in my own work? Well, I’ve increased my skill at designing the conference badges in GIMP, which is the open-source version of Photoshop. (If you need Photoshop, and the light version isn’t enough, beg your IT department to let you download GIMP. It’s free, and if you already know Photoshop, GIMP is a breeze). Open source shouldn’t be seen as innovative for our libraries in this day and age given how long it has been around, but it is. (more…)

They’re in our libraries, on our computers.

But what, specifically, is the life of a tween or young teen like in this digital age? What are the particular challenges and opportunities they face online? And how do libraries help them?

We will explore these questions at the 2012 Presidents’ Program at ALA in Anaheim. It will be a joint affair between ALSC and YALSA. Michelle Poris (of Smartypants) and Stephen Abrams will be talking about tweens and young teens, exploring their use of technology, and asking the question “What should libraries be doing?”

But the real point of this post: what are YOU doing? (more…)

Get a pair of x-ray goggles that really work! While these may not see through a steel plate, they can see right through the Internet!

YALSA is pleased to host a demonstration of one of the Mozilla Foundation’s newest tools: the Hackasaurus web x-ray goggles. This javascript app gives teens – and anybody else – the tools to discover the rich world of code hiding just beneath the surface and gives them the ability to remix the web. (more…)

Title: Michael Jackson The Experience

Cost:  $4.99
Platform: iPad: requires iOS 4.2 or later

When Michael Jackson The Experience came out for Xbox Kinect every teen in my library wanted to give it a whirl, but some were too shy to shake it in front of their peers. This excellent iPad app is a great alternative for teens who just aren’t comfortable doing their best rendition of “Thriller” in front of an audience. In this format, they can let their fingers do the dancing and save themselves some humiliation, all while taking part jamming out to MJ’s classic hits like “Beat It,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Blood on the Dance Floor, “and much more. Don’t see your favorite song included in the game? No worries, you can download other songs through the in-app purchase function.

The game functions by using your fingers to make a series of swipes across the screen, following the prompts for each impending dance move. When this happens, the Michael Jackson avatar comes to life and performs real Michael Jackson signature moves. Thankfully, the game is not sensitive to how large you make the signs or where on the screen you make them; just as long as you perform the correct “swipe motion,” your move will be properly executed. The animation and game graphics are amazing and will not let you down. (more…)

I’m cheating a little because I haven’t actually played Minecraft with teens on the brand new multiplayer server space I just rented.  But I do play a lot of Minecraft with my friends, I have talked a lot about it with teens, and I am going to offer the game as a regular teen program starting next week.  Here’s what I’m doing to bring Minecraft to the library, and links to some interesting ideas about things you might do with it.

But first, what is Minecraft?

Minecraft is a game where you roam a landscape full of different sorts of blocks that you can move around to build anything you want.  You can dig deep to find different resources, and explore to find a variety of environments.  At night, zombies and other monsters come out, so you need to protect yourself.  The game was created by Swedish programmer Markus Persson, and is being developed by his company Mojang.  It’s still in beta,  so there are new updates all the time.  Minecraft is getting prettier and more involved with each new permutation.

I love this game because it demands creativity.  You have a world, and you can do anything.  It’s even more fun with friends, where in building your world you find yourselves cooperating by sharing resources,  planning building projects,  helping each other and showing off for each other.  I can’t wait to see what happens when I turn my group of teens loose in their new world.

Here’s a video for you to take a look at Minecraft.

Click through for more.
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I started working as the YA representative in my library in 2008, amid the fight to prove to the world why gaming belonged in libraries. This was a fight that YA librarians across the country were involved in, so much so that books, journal articles and blogs were made dedicated solely on the topic. In my library system, we won this battle and now have gaming systems at every branch in our system. And this is true nationwide. If you take a look at the teen programs offered by most library systems, you will find gaming on the agenda. We won this battle.

So what happened? YA librarians seem content to let it stay at this level, when in fact, we should be continuing to push to make more and more technology available to teens in the library. A recent study by McCann Worldgroup showed that teens would rather lose their sense of smell than their techonolgy.(http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385960,00.asp) And technology consists of much more than just gaming.  There are many free websites available that allow users to create their own animated videos, like xtranormal.com.  Scratch, a free software program designed by MIT (http://scratch.mit.edu/), allows users to program their own video games.  All of this is available through technology we already have in our buildings and we should be using it in teen programming.  YA librarians have already shown that technology is an essential part of teen programing.  We have an obligation to teens to continue to push to get free technology in their hands.

So why not ask for green screen technology like Charlotte-Mecklenburg uses for their teens?  Why not ask for digital  and video cameras so we can teach teens how to create their own short-length movies?  Why not ask for Macs to use Movie-Maker?  Why not ask for Photoshop to teach teens how to edit their pictures.  All of these things are becoming basics in information literacy education.  One of the new rolls libraries are striving for is to become teachers of information literacy- to become the experts on these topics.  So why not ask for more?  The worst that can happen is to be told no.  The best that can happen is to be able to give teens more reasons to love the library.

How are your preparations for Teen Tech Week 2011 coming? With budget and staffing strain it can be difficult to find the resources to plan events for teens in your libraries. However, the teens can be your biggest asset when it comes to program planning and presentation. Find out what they’re interested in and help bring their ideas to life. It will increase program attendance and could develop into an active Teen Advisory Group.

In case you’re still making arrangements for your event, here are some low cost Teen Tech Week programming ideas.
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Dear YALSA:

The teens in my library are app-crazy! They are asking hard questions like, “I’ve made this app for my droid, but I need help getting the bugs out.” Then I’ve got the adults who don’t know an app from their, well, you know. Can you help me and my patrons sort out the ins and outs of apps? Tell me more about the app marketplace and how the web is being overtaken by the entirely more
convenient app world!

Sincerely,

App-Wary
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Teen Tech Week is a great time to start thinking about how to incorporate technology into your library services the rest of the year. Budgets are tight in libraries all over the country but technology keeps humming along, moving faster than we can keep up with monetarily. Teens specifically have an expectation that we should be keeping up. They aren’t wrong. So how do you advocate for enough technology funding to keep up with technology?

We shouldn’t stop proposing new ideas for service just because we don’t have a lot of money. It just means that we have to be selective with what projects we propose and very creative with funding sources. We also need to put as much thought as possible into the proposal before we go to management with it.
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It’s time to get digital once again, as Teen Tech Week rolls around for 2011! This year’s theme is Mix and Match, encouraging teens to create content and share it with others across a broad network of users. It’s always an exciting time to encourage out of the box technology programming for teens, and a great opportunity to begin tech programs for teens if your library doesn’t have such programs set up.

First, let’s start with the basic Teen Tech Time. This is your opportunity to open up your library to computer based programs, with simple, self guided computer sessions. You reserve a bank of computers or laptops for a certain hour, and encourage teens to sign up with you. It’s important to note that these sessions are provided in addition to the teen’s regular internet appointment, rather than superseding it. Teens are able to use the additional time to hang out and mess around with the technology they are interested in, rather than having to choose to divide their single daily appointment between fun use and homework use. If you have have laptops and a programming space, Teen Tech Time can help you create a miniature teen space, one where they can be louder and more social around the computers than they could be on the main floor.
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