Field report time!

I have been putting this report off in hopes to have some great media and artifacts to present, but this will have to wait until my next report. I found some time to give a quick status update of what I've been up to. We really need more activity on here!

I have been working on two major goals right now: developing programming for our evening workshops and establishing a system to track our technology that both stays in-house and are rented out to the community.

Comment from Melissa Niiya on November 22, 2010 - 8:01pm

DIY Steadycam sounds so awesome! Out of curiosity, are most of your instructors staff or volunteers or contracted out or...? It sounds like you guys have a lot of classes and a diverse range at that!

Comment from Chris Anderson on November 22, 2010 - 8:25pm

We've started with three types of tracks: design, audio, & video.
We have a good mix of staff/volunteers, and are planning on doing a major recruitment of interns next year.
FabLabSD.org has joined forces with us and currently is running out of our space. They specialize in digital fabrication and electronics and teach a workshop once a week. FabLabSD is made up of three individuals, which two volunteer their time instructing.

Comment from Bill Brown on November 24, 2010 - 11:31am

Thanks for posting a report Chris! Thats really cool you've gotten involved with the fablab and they are actually working out of yalls space. I've heard we have one in Boston but I haven't really taken the time to investigate. 3D scanners are the best.

Hey Guys, those of you are working with youth users of community technology centers, -- Microsoft is offering a free computer summer camp for girls in grades 10-12. Unfortunately, it's not being held in Miami, Florida (where I am) but the camps are being held in:
Charlotte, NC
Chicago, IL
Fargo, ND
Las Colinas, TX

I'm just finishing up week one (week two for some schools) for the Winter session of OLLIE. The groups we are working with this time already seem to be an infinite improvement over some of the groups from last session. I'm not going to put all of the blame on the schools and students though.

So I just ran across an interesting site, the Librarian's Internet Index. As the name suggests, it is an index of websites organized into categories and then subtopics. Each area contains links and short descriptions of relevant, useful websites. The sites listed have actually been reviewed by librarians and recommended as containing quality information. These aren't just random Google search results. Seems like this could be a useful research tool, especially for folks working with young people in/outside of schools.

The site also offers a "New this Week" email newsletter. Opening of the Oct. 26 newsletter: "This week grow what you know with websites about elections, Halloween festivities, iron ore, invisibility cloaks, federal spending, spider bites, paper cranes, prisons in the UK, and more. Bon appetit from librarians Karen, Wendy, Jennifer, Maria, and Charlotte."