Getting Started

Recently I noticed there aren't tons of blogs talking about using technology with children in library programs. (It is a pretty specific topic). Sure libraries provide technology for discovery and personal use for children and their families, they even provide programs for adults and teens that utilize technology, but they have been a bit slow about integrating technology into children's programming. Granted, children's programming involves much more interaction and face time than do programming options for the older crowd. And there are concerns about how much screen time is too much screen time for kids. Still, in a world that continues to grow more techcentric, children need to be familiar with these tools. 

As a benchmark for striking a good balance check out a recent blog post by Dr. Larry Rosen, which gave these recommendations for child technology use, "children need to use technology at a ratio of 1 to 5 meaning that for every minute of tech use there should be an equivalent 5 minutes of time spent doing something else including talking to people, interacting with toys that promote creativity (and mind wandering) and doing activities that calm an overactive brain...As the child gets older, the ratio starts to change and around the time your child is a preteen the ratio is usually about half and half." Keeping this in mind, librarians still have plenty of options open for them to introduce technology concepts into children's programs. 

This site will be used to document the different ways we can integrate technology into existing programs, as well as creating new programs focused on technology.