Author Archive

Turning Individuals into Leaders

As I brainstormed different topics for my blog post today, I had a hard time landing on something. I first thought about doing something Christmas and holiday related. But, I figured that most librarians and educators have already closed the books on their holiday programs, events, and displays for this year, so I scratched that

Bloxels and Other Ways to Create Video Games

Floors Recently, I hosted a Classic Video Game Extravaganza for our middle and high school students (we spent the majority of our time on Free80sArcade, Atari, and TankTrouble). While looking around for other video games to play, I was reminded of Floors, which a colleague on SPLAT had mentioned to me. Basically, you draw a video game

Rube Goldberg Machines: Low-Tech Making at its Best

And now, for something completely different (which isn’t quite accurate, as we will still be dealing with STEAM principles, and libraries, so it would probably be more accurate to say, something somewhat different). Rube Goldberg was an American cartoonist, engineer, and inventor, who is best known for his illustrations of simple actions being carried out

5 Programmable Robots by Price

Different types of robots were a large part of our last quarterly SPLAT meeting, and have also been a focus of many of my outreach programs this Spring semester. Robots have a unique ability to grab people’s attention, provide an opportunity to use 21st-century skills, and also give them a fantastic amount of coding experience. With

Kibo Robot: Coding in the Real World

Coding is a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) topic that is getting a lot of press right now, and rightfully so. Moving into the future, students and employees with coding skills will have an advantage moving into school and into the workforce. Luckily, there are a lot of free resources that can get you

Getting Started with 3D Design

For the past three summers, SPLAT members have roadtripped their way through the rural parts of Idaho (which means we have a lot of places to choose from), showing off innovative technology, and starting conversations about the future of libraries. We just finished our 2015 Roadtrip through Eastern Idaho, and it was a bunch of

Ingress: Location Based Sci-Fi Scavenger Game

A young adult who used to come to my Teen programs stopped by the library yesterday. He’s been playing an augmented reality, location-based game called Ingress, and he was excited to share it with me. While the game began on the Google Play store, the app now has a version available on the App store

3D Printing with the Cloud

3D printing seems to be blowing up the internet and the world right now. From owners printing prosthetic legs for their dogs, to a Sonic Screwdriver for our Teen Doctor Who Christmas Party, the applications and uses of this technology continue to excite and amaze us. My library was dropped into this new world when

PowToon: Superpowered Presentations!

With the concepts of “Show, Don’t Tell,” and “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words,” firmly imprinted on my brain, I decided to make a presentation about this website, using this website, instead of talking about this website. But, before I do that I should mention three things: 1) This website is called PowToon, and

YPULSE: Youth and Millennial Marketing

I’m all about stealing other people’s great ideas (which is why Creative Commons is such a great idea for me hehe). Now my boss (the awesome Karen Yother) likes to refer to it as “not reinventing the wheel,” and others comment, “that everyone remixes used ideas.” Either way, this week’s post is thanks to (the