In the first one the kids tell why they like the library: books, computers, hanging out with friends, lemonade!

And the second, an appeal to voters to get out and support the library budget in November.

Creative and fun! This library participated in a summer reading mini-grant project sponsored by the Mid-Hudson Library System.  The grant provided video cameras and training on editing video (full disclosure – I had great fun doing the training session). Many of the videos are now posted on the NYS Summer Reading site.

Thanks to Marilyn Fino of the Milton Library for sending these in!

A Book for Every Mood written, performed and filmed by the teens.

And don’t miss their Little Red and the Pigs Revenge!! and the instructions for an Origami Star Box

As part of their summer reading programs, the Mid-Hudson and Ramapo-Catskill library systems provided mini-grants for member libraries to buy small video cameras for the kids and teens to make movies. And I conducted workshops for the staff on movie editing and camera use. What fun we had.

But not as much fun as the kids seem to be having making movies!  As the summer draws to a close, the videos are pouring in and I’m having a great time watching them.  We’re posting a selection of them on the NYS Summer Reading web site.

Animoto has a handy option for creating a customized Mother’s Day greeting. Upload your photos, pick some music – or maybe record your own greeting as and upload that as the audio. Finally select the special Mother’s Day greeting option. Your video will appear in a pretty frame and have it’s own URL. Send that off to Mom for her own personalized video!

Tools covered include: delicious, Bubblr, YouTube, RSS, SecondLife, iTunes, Twitter, BlackBoard, Photoshop, PowerPoint and many many more. And there’s a special section of screencast for ELT/ESL. I could spend all day watching these and learning about new tools and new tips for ones I’m already familiar with.

Here’s my very quick test.

Tim Brown: The powerful link between creativity and play

Talked about the need to engage in:

• playful exploration
• playful building
• playful roleplaying

• Started with an exercise – asked the audience to take 30 seconds to draw a picture of the person sitting next to them. The audience was full of laughter and lots of apologies for their efforts.  His point was that adults are worried about being judged for their ideas, while kids doing this same sort of exercise don’t apologize, they’re proud of their creativity.
• To be creative as adults, we need the security to takes risks, security to play.
• Mentioned a colleague who, when forming a company, sought to find employees who would be like best friends. To build the sense of trust. Friendship is a shortcut to play, the security that allows us to take creative risks.
• Why is playfulness important? It helps get to creative solutions, and do our jobs better.

On PLAYFUL EXPLORATION

• Adults see something new and try to stick it into some sort of category of what we already know, limits the possibilities that we see.
• Kids see something new and ask “what can i do with this?” They’re engaged in open, exploratory play.
• So why have rules for brainstorming sessions?  Brainstorming ‘rules’ seem counter-intuitive, but it’s hard to break our adult habits of limiting ourselves and others.  It helps to have those ‘rules’ to help break us out of habits – eg:  make no judgments toss out lots of ideas, etc.

I think that In the best of situations, the rules aren’t needed, when there is already trust between peers. This reminds me of some of the best group projects/committees that I was ever part of.  We made some challenging things happen through trust, fun and creativity.  Through building on each others ideas, trusting that we could propose crazy ideas, insuring that we looked at things from lots of perspectives.  And it all happened because we liked, respected and trusted each other.

In our libraries (and all organizations!) we need leaders who can create an atmosphere of trust, so we can play and be creative. And anyone on staff can be a leader! It doesn’t have to be from the top down, though that sure would be ideal. Though I’m not sure how long people can remain creative if it’s actively disapproved of.

On PLAYFUL BUILDING

• What is it? Using objects around us to quickly prototype real world tools. This helps to communicate ideas and experience. Thinking with your hands.

On PLAYFUL ROLEPLAYING

• Acting out scenarios. In library settings this might be around customer service issues when we’re developing new services. What will it really be like for the customer.
• Roleplaying helps us develop empathy for customers, users.
• And helps design experiences that work.

Lots of terrific ideas for us to put to use in our work in designing services that work and solving problems in our libraries.

Wouldn’t this be a great class project?

Take a look for yourself and then get out your video cam and explain your favorite word.

One of my favorites was “fermata”, which was a new word for me!

(via: Infodoodads)