Vickie Oatis- Norwalk Public Library
Keira Parrott – Darien Library
Earl Givens and Art Gutierrez -Emporia State Univ.

NAEYP Standards support the engagement of young students using online devices.

Darien Public Library started with iPad station as an entry point–mounted iPad with a MacLocks mount, and load an “app of the day.”
Caveat–If you mount an iPad, think about if apps run in Landscape or Portrait mode.(swivel mount would be good for flexibility)

Moved to Early Literacy iPad Kit.–Patrons can check out  Ipad with cover, bag, brochure and survey.  Loaded with early childhood apps, and part of program is to discuss with parents how to use apps that are developmental tools.  Their brochure has info on early literacy, how tablets support it, a list of the apps that are pre-loaded, and then a guide for parents on finding and selecting apps.   Shows that librarians are involved with internet/technical literacy as well.

Tech Programs they offer for kids:

Little Clickers (2 to 5 yr)
Techsplorers (6-8 yrs)
iKids (9-12)

They participate in a program called Storytubes where students film book trailers and they are using iPads for that.

Norwalk Public Library — different community profile than Darien.  Check out iPads “in house” for one hour at a time, pre-loaded with apps.  They also use the iPads in Storytimes with small groups to incorporate apps, videos, music, book apps into Storytimes.   Vickie likes Kirkus reviews of book apps.

Using books that are more interactive is helpful with storytime for younger students like Sandra Boynton books, Bartleby’s book of buttons(game and book integrated together-interesting), Nash Smasher, Cookie Doodle (process for making cookies).  Fantastic Flying Books app, etc.

She also has children write reviews of book apps and posts them or shares them.  (Nice way to bring in evaluative piece for elementary age students and even high school).

Emporia Univ. Library–  Used Androids but discovered they didn’t fit their needs, but because they are open source they customized it for their own needs to save money. They offer a course in Information Literacy and Technology.   (Rooted them with Cyanogen-Mod 7.2 and use MIUI). Students from rural areas–using tablets to increase their access to technology.