Posts tagged ‘Uncategorized’
One Laptop Per Child
The other night I watched 60 Minutes which isn’t something I regularly do but I’m glad I did because last night they did a story called What If Every Child Had A Laptop?
Nicholas Negroponte, a professor at MIT, had a dream that every child on the planet had a laptop. He thought that this would enable kids even from impoverished countries to become educated and a part of the rest of the modern world. He figured if he could help invent an inexpensive laptop he could achieve this dream.
He founded a non-profit organization called One Laptop Per Child and he has managed to create a lightweight, very sturdy, inexpensive laptop that he expects will soon cost about $100.00.
The show was pretty amazing – the kids in some places he went to didn’t even have electricity or running water but when they got the laptops they only needed about 10 minutes to figure out how to use them! They taught each other and they brought the laptops home and taught their families. Sometimes the light from the laptop was the only source of light in the home! Some places he would like to give the kids laptops don’t even have a school. The laptops would be their school.
It might seem like a luxury but would it really be in places such as Cambodia, Brazil, countries in Africa?
Interestingly, the attendance at schools where the laptops were given out also went up – kids were coming to school because they had heard from other kids that school was a good place to be and a place where they got the laptops. These kids started crossing the digital divide.
The computers have built-in cameras, drawing programs and programs to make music. They have wi-fi two to three times better than the wi-fi in this Dell laptop I’m using right now, according to Negroponte, and are currently in a testing program in Brazil. The computers are waterproof and do not have openings on the sides where sand or dirt could get in.
These laptops have other features I would love – the battery lasts 10-12 hours and can be recharged with the use of a hand-crank if no electricity is available. Who wouldn’t love that!?
Interestingly, this laptop which started out as a dream and is Negroponte’s completely humanitarian effort, has attracted some competition. Geekcorps – an organization that brings technology to poorer countries, much like the Peace Corps operates, thinks the One Laptop Per Child idea is great but director Wayan Vota isn’t sure that the kids can really just teach themselves. And there is another laptop up against Negroponte’s. The Classmate by Intel –
Negroponte says that worldwide there are over a billion children who would need laptops, so no wonder other companies want in on this idea. Negroponte says this competition is “shameless,” but Intel says it is just the way the business – the world – works. Intel believes that a project like this will require everyone working together and that there are lots of opportunities to work together.
To get his laptops into full production he will need at least 3 million orders. He feels confident he will get that despite the competition from Intel and others who will want to get their products into the hands of a billion plus kids.
If his ultimate goal is really a purely humanitarian one of really getting a laptop into the hands of every child maybe the competition will be good – maybe it will result in an even cheaper, and better, model that really can be distributed worldwide.
Whatever happens with the One Laptop Per Child program, one of my favorite parts of this whole idea is that when One Laptop Per Child comes to the US (there are talks going on already) and if the laptops become available commercially, parents will have to buy two if they want one. One for your child and one for another child. I think that’s a great idea and hey you’ll still only be spending about $200.00!
I think this program would be great in urban areas in the United States such as the one I am working in now, Paterson, New Jersey. Many of the kids in these schools do not have access to computers everyday, they don’t even all have real cafeterias, gyms or science labs in most of the schools! I recently toured some of the schools in Paterson during a seminar for Leadership Paterson, a program I am enrolled in. That was fascinating but I will post on that another time at my blog, Urban Librarian.
Library Futures Conference – some resources
Wow! How will I get the TIME to deal with all that happened at the Futures Conference? Time was one of the major themes throughout the conference: Time is “speeding up,” we have a “distorted sense” of time; etc…
Some of the other themes were:
Change (of course)
People – we need to focus on, not just books, information, etc.
Reflection – people need space/time to reflect on all the amazing experiences that new technologies allow us to have – the library could be the perfect place for that!
(I’ll add more later)
I am eager to get some of my notes and thoughts out there – I think Pete’s first post did a great job of capturing the “library spaces” program and I hope he’ll share more of his notes!
For now, here are a few resources, b/c I am eagerly awaiting the posting of all the presentations, podcasts, information etc. from the conference:
Ray Kurzweil’s site
Bob Treadway’s site
Joan Frye William’s site
Mary Catherine Bateson’s site
Those are the only ones I can put up quickly – I really can’t wait until all the materials are made available so that they may be shared as widely as possible with those who were not able to attend.
I also really love when different things start to “come together.” I found these things last night and they really relate to the conference:
Pushing Through The Dip and this via Helene Blowers on flickr
Google’s trend watch
Learning 2.0 Throughout the World and
Spring into Learning 2.0
Actually, I think all of those resulted originally from me looking at Helene Blowers’ flickr site!
I have already had to create a “futures” folder for myself for all the things that have been flying around today already as a result of the conference! That is probably one mark of an excellent conference!
In Memory of Shel Silverstein
In 1999, I was working as a Surveyor. My coworkers were gruff men who enjoyed using their machetes to hack down site lines for their instruments. Sum’bitch was a popular word to use as both an adjective and noun. So, it was a bit suprising when, on May 10th, my crew chief took the morning paper, rolled it up, and told not to open it until I got home… he actually forced me to leave work and paid me for the day. When I got home, I opened the newspaper he gave me and saw that Shel Silverstein passed away the night before, I’d lost my favorite childhood writer. My chief knew that too and I guess he figured that news was enough work for one day. So I took the day off and wrote this song:
I’ll never forget that day May 10th, 1999
When I opened up the paper and saw my favorite writer
a mentor had died.
Now there’s no more kids in the tub
and the channels on the TV have become
boring and dumb.
Then I called up my best friend
and said “I think we finally found out where
the sidewalk ends.”
A Light in the Attic
can tell me how people
dream to get by.
I’d climb the highest mountain
to meet Baba Fatts
and find his perfect high.
But lesson number one,
I’ll never try to cheat the devil
like Billy Markham.
I guess what they say is true
People’d rather waste their life on dope
then hear the truth.
Well, someday, I’ll write a book
and it will be successful
overnight.
It will be called
“How the Giving Tree
Came to Change My Life.”
I’ve read it since I was four
and to a thousand other children when I was
a camp counselor.
And I laughed a lot
but not as much as I cried
the day that my mentor Shel Silverstein died.
Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone who is going at The Futures Conference Monday and Tuesday!
I’m really excited that NJ is participating in this conference. To me it is a strong indication that librarians in NJ want to be at the forefront of things as time goes by. For too long we have been playing catch-up and have been behind. Thankfully, there are many librarians who have been stepping up to get up to speed and then sharing what they know with others, but we will all need to prepare ourselves as much as possible so that libraries and library services, and librarians, will hold their places of great value and importance in their communities and to society.
Things will continue to change and progress – of that we can be sure.
I think we should all just admit that change is scary and difficult – share the fears we have and understand that just because we may be afraid of something, that doesn’t make it bad or wrong or dangerous. Admit it and talk about it. Face it head-on and in the open – help each other to deal with the anxieties and concerns it can bring. Pretending change and fear and anxiety don’t exist can result in unnecessarily overly negative reactions to new ideas and suggestions.
In fact, of course, things have already changed and we have been behind the curve. I’m so glad we’re catching up now and having a futures conference is a great way to be more forward-thinking rather than backward-looking. I’m very eager to listen, think and talk about what will be happening in the future, not just in libraries, but in all areas, and how these things will impact us as librarians.
I’m looking forward to all the conversations that will result.
Congrats to Janie and NJ’s Movers and Shakers
A hearty congratulations to Library Garden’s own Janie Hermann on her much deserved selection as an LJ Mover and Shaker:
Hermann enjoys being actively engaged with a world beyond her own library, through the blog Library Garden, the staff training and patron service communities at WebJunction, and numerous conference presentations. She says these kinds of contributions keep her “enthusiastic and excited about our profession” and help her stay ahead on new trends and technology.
Every personality inventory she’s ever taken says that Hermann is “an extroverted risk-taker.” Uprooting herself from her Canadian homeland and moving from teaching to librarianship, she’s remade her life and her library.
I’d also like to give a shout-out to a few other Garden State librarians being honored:
- Linda Devlin: Friend, former co-worker, Camden County Library’s new director, and, I hope, future LG blogger! (hint, hint… OK, your doing three jobs right now…maybe a guest piece on what it’s like to be a young new library director??)
- Trevor Dawes: Circulation Supervisor at Princeton University. Among his many accomplishments Trevor’s done a great job reviving NJLA’s mentoring program.
- Nicole Cooke: Reference Librarian, Montclair State University. In addition to starting and heading up the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (with Trevor), Nicole writes, presents and (dear to my heart) coordinates New Jersey’s Train-The-Trainer program.
Congratulations to you, and to all of the librarians honored as LJ Movers and Shakers for 2007!
2 Great Posts on DRM
I was doing a reference question and in the course of finding the answer I found 2 great posts on DRM:
- What web 2.0 could teach Warner Music’s Eric Bronfman posted by Alan Graham on Tales from the Web 2.0 Frontier
- Good Job Jobs posted by Collin Douma on Radical Trust
I will be reading both these posts again more carefully tonight or tomorrow as I only had time to quickly scan them while on the desk. Here are a few highlights that made me know in an instant that they are bookmark worthy:
Graham states at the outset of his post:
In the Web 2.0 world everything makes or breaks on interoperability…or sharing. Sharing of thoughts, ideas, media, code, and work. If any point that openness is constricted, the whole system breaks down. Without this environment there would be no mashups, and many of the online services we rely on today would not exist.
Just imagine if all that open interoperability went away and we were back to the old days of closed APIs and closed systems. That’s what DRM does.
Then just before his call for action, asks a crucial question:
Steve Jobs claims he wants to eliminate DRM. The music executives claim to want what’s best for the consumer and their bottom line. These two things are not mutually exclusive. How about trusting your customers instead of assuming that every one of us is a criminal?
Douma, along the same lines, opens his post with this:
Let’s be frank for a moment. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is antitrust and anti-radical trust. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the iTunes music store because of its DRM. Why should you pay $1 for a track loaded with DRM when you can download it for free from a torrent with no restrictions at all? Why should anyone pay to be restricted?
And concludes with this:
This week’s call from Steve Jobs is long overdue. I hope that more visionaries like this guy can convince the world that there is more money to be made in trusting people than there is in restricting them.
Overdue Books Affecting Credit Score
I am sitting here watching the local evening news when a story comes on about the fact that if a library reports your overdue fines to a collection agency you can lose anywhere from 50 to 100 points from your credit score. Wow, that is a lot of points for overdue books!
I only caught a portion of the story (Mommy duties intervened), but what I did catch was an interview with a library director stating something to the effect that in times of budget cuts it is essential that libraries make it know that overdue materials affect the bottom line.
I went searching for some reference to this story, and found an article published today on Kiplinger.com called Boost Your Score that starts with this tidbit:
Pop quiz: Which affects your credit score more, getting married or having overdue library books?
Surprise answer: A library fine that goes to collection can shave 100 points off your credit score — and boost your annual interest payments by hundreds of dollars. But getting married doesn’t affect your score at all unless you co- sign for a loan with your new spouse.
I am not entirely convinced that library fines are even needed in the first place, so my gut reaction to having someone’s credit score ruined by late library books doesn’t sit well with me at all. I might be more sensitive to this as I protect my credit score with a passion ever since I had to work so hard to build it from scratch when I first moved to the USA 9 years ago. None of your credit history follows you across the border (so I discovered, much to my dismay) and I could not get a credit card, car loan or any other other loan to save my soul for several years. A few points off your credit score can make a big difference in loan rate and I am sure that the average citizen watching this news segment did not get a warm fuzzy feeling about libraries learning that we could be the ones to impact their future mortgage rate.
Free Viewing of Air Gear
Testing 1-2-3
Ever since we moved to the “new” blogger I have had a problem with my posts disappearing never to be found again. Just want to see if blogger is going to play nice with me today and finally let me post list for the 5 things meme since I have now been tagged twice. Nothing more to see for now… but hopefully more later today.
Edited to Add:
It worked!!!
…And I tag
Oops… Forgot the most important part of the Five Things meme. (my fiveish things are here.)
I tag: Nancy Dowd, Steve Backs, Darlene Fichter, George Needham, and Stephen Abram.
Library Garden 