The photo above shows three of the new pieces of audio equipment now available in the Library. It's part of an attempt to upgrade available resources and try to keep up with technology. With budget money we purchased one iPod/iPhone portable boombox and two stereo systems that play iPods/iPhones + CDs +AM/FM tuner. They are barcoded so teachers may check them out for use in their classroom. I expect they will be popular and hope that next year we can upgrade to furnish classrooms with newer equipment.
I expect some parents wonder why they see old, "antique" AV equipment in our school. Well, we still have audiocassettes that have wonderful read-along stories and songs. We can't just discard everything and much of it is still useful. Until we manage to equip every classroom with the newer digital resources, we need equipment that can play a variety of formats.
If you look at the photo, you'll notice VHS tapes that are part of the library collection. These have been gradually discarded for many years, but some titles reflect resources that are either not available or too expensive to replace quickly. It may be embarrassing, but it's a fact of life in most schools. We hope to get videostreaming in our budget next year and that will enable us to move away from VHS and DVDs.
And these examples just represent some of the AV issues - let's not even talk about computers! Just rest assured that everyone is trying to do a little catching up as fast as possible
I do hope everyone recognizes that keeping up with technology is virtually impossible these days. It's not easy at home or business and even more difficult in education. Have you heard of Moore's Law? Try looking it up. I'll blog a little about it next week.
C. Reiser-Jones
P.S. When I came to Charlestown in 1998, the first big task was weeding and discarding hundreds of filmstrips!
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