The SCL Learning Offer in the North East

Last Friday 6 May I had the opportunity to attend the Society of Chief Librarians' Universal Offers roadshow at Newcastle City Library.

My understanding is that the Universal Offers have been developed by the SCL to better promote what public libraries do but also help library services understand where they might be lacking or leading compared to others in England. When a public library signs up to an Offer they agree to provide a core package of services linked to a particular area. For example, the Digital Offer includes: "free internet access (for a minimum period of time), clear and accessible online information about library services, staff trained to help customers access digital information". The Offers are continously expanded and new ones are developed.

The regional roadshows allow librarians to come together to share best practice but also provide feedback on each Offer - for a snapshot of the North East event, check out the #neroadshow hashtag on Twitter. I spent my day at the Learning Offer table, as I had been asked to share my experience of releasing and re-using library data and how the Wuthering Hacks hackathon I organised last month encouraged members of the public to "develop and share ideas and learn together" in libraries, which is one of the points in the Learning Offer.

The Learning Offer also covers "that coding and making stuff"; as library staff felt they needed more information about how to run these types of activities, the SCL has produced a toolkit called Code Green to help them.
In Newcastle we have recently invested in some kit, so my colleague @biblioluke and I had set up some (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, etc.) in the room for roadshow attendees who'd never tried these to have a go. I am afraid the first thing I did with attendees arriving to the Learning Offer table in the morning is engage them in a bit of making! They created foil sculptures - which were fantastic and included a bird, a boat, a bracelet, a dog, a caterpillar (or similar type of creature) - to show off how a MakeyMakey works!

The reason for this post is simply that I took a few notes during the day, and instead of forgetting them I thought I might as well write them all up. Below is therefore a quick roundtable of some of the things I heard from colleagues in library services across the North East.

The Learning Offer in the North East: what other libraries are doing

• Gateshead Libraries, like many others, offer a weekly job club: in 4 to 5 weeks unemployed customers learn how to write their CV using a computer, search for jobs online... Theirs is mainly attended by people over 50 years old. They may not get a job straightaway but they get a huge confidence boost.
• In Middlesbrough the local history volunteers are realising how valuable their local knowledge is and therefore building their confidence too. They are now presenting to other groups and doing talks, one volunteer even teaching another how to use Powerpoint when they weren't particularly IT-savvy! 
• In Northumberland the first Code Club is about to start at Hexham Library. When the library service was looking for volunteers, most of them seemed more interested in working with schools... In the end the Council's Digital Team helped get the Code Club set up, so the library is getting benefits from the activity with minimal input. 
• In North Tyneside the Lifelong Learning arm of the Council deliver courses in libraries and are happy to take suggestions from library staff on further courses to offer.
• Stockton Libraries took part in the BBC Get Creative Day on 2nd April and invited local creative people to showcase their work and run workshops for customers, including one on pottery and another on book art!

Thoughts on the Learning Offer

• Local Studies and Family History are actually a big part of most services' learning offer (more than coding!)
• The Learning Offer gives public libraries a chance to target other groups - those that maybe don't use libraries much / that we don't cater for very well e.g. teenagers, young adults in education.
• More and more services are being pressured into generating income, but most of our customers can't afford to pay for things including learning activities.
• Barriers to implementing the Learning Offer: space, time, money, staff. There are also less learning providers and they are offering courses in libraries with now-reduced hours.
• Some Councils are putting pressure on libraries by asking: "OK, the library is doing this because it fits with its role, but what does it bring to the Council as a whole?"
• Comment on the hackathon case study: if libraries ask Councils/IT anything to do with systems and data, the first answer they'll get is no.
• Through SCL we could work more closely together. It's great to be able to meet people at the regional roadshow and know who to ask for advice on particular topics, though more formal peer mentoring or training is needed.
• Next steps for the Learning Offer: more stuff for adults! Coding is not just for children [I couldn't agree more!]

Coding: what schools do...

...that libraries could take inspiration from.

Last week I got sent on a training organised by the North-East group of ASCEL, the Association of Senior Children's and Education Librarians. Now, I'm clearly not a children's librarian (my association wouldn't be ASCEL but more something like: ACGIFL, the Association of Copyright Geeks and Intellectual Freedom Librarians! If it existed, of course.) My colleague who was supposed to go had an emergency and basically the head of the Children's team came to me and said: "Aude, it's training about coding, robotics etc. - you're into those things, would you go so the place isn't wasted?"

So there I am the next day, at the Open Zone CLC in South Shields. The Open Zone CLC team help school teachers across South Tyneside with IT. They provide support and training on the technical side of things but also deliver computing lessons for pupils as young as 4 years old and up to 18.

Interestingly, Open Zone also runs some workshops for parents, specifically on e-safety - however, they found there was a very low take-up, as the vast majority of parents don't realise how important safety and privacy online are!

Our trainer started by telling us about the new computing curriculum for Key Stage 1 & 2 (primary school, 5 to 11 year-olds), which encompasses computer science, information technology and digital literacy including e-safety. The day was then spent trialling some of the tools and devices Open Zone use to teach what the national curriculum prescribes.

Screenshot from "Daisy the dinosaur"

We started by trying out some coding apps for younger children:

 Daisy the dinosaur (free iPad app; can be used by 3-year-olds)

 Kodable (didn't try that one)

 Hopscotch (free iPad app; good but I got confused by the categories)

 Scratch junior (the little brother of the MIT platform; free app available for Android, iOS and even Kindle)

Before moving on to tools for an older age range we got to play with Bee Bots - though to be correct the ones we used were Blue Bots (connecting to a tablet via Bluetooth). These bees are programmable floor robots - and they're really fun.

Other recommended educational coding platforms for an older age range:

 Scratch (obviously!)
 Kodu (Microsoft programme that works with Xbox controllers and apparently "a bit more exciting than Scratch")

 Codecademy (free online courses for different programming languages)

 Hour of Code (yay!)

Blue Bot programmed on iPad and raring to go

I got called "swotty" several times during the day, and the first was when the trainer started talking about the Hour of Code. I totally agree when she said it is brilliant to get people started with coding and can be used for both children and adults. Where I disagree is when she recommended the Star Wars Hour of Code (in her defense, she did admit it was partly because she is a Star Wars fan!) whereas I think the Minecraft one's the best (because the squares make it easier to program how far the character needs to go. Plus Minecraft is way cooler than Star Wars - right?!  Erm, let's move on...)

Next on the agenda was Lego. Open Zone use Lego WeDo with primary school pupils and Mindstorms with secondary. We got to try the Mindstorms EV3. The programming interface still uses "blocks" of sorts but the options on the EV3 are definitely more advanced: first of all you have to figure out which motors to use (the robot has 3!) to make it move, and then there are all sorts of options and sensors to play with.

Note: if you checked out the Blue Bots and thought they were expensive, don't look at the Legos or your eyes will water.

Below is a very short video of an EV3 I programmed to: move forward, wait 3sec, turn around, move forward.  

After that (and some lunch), the trainer took us through a lesson plan she uses to teach pupils enough coding to create a game using Scratch (in a one and a half hour session). I'd played with Scratch before but not in-depth so that was my favourite part of the day!

Open Zone use the Scratch 1 offline editor (they have it installed on all the computers) rather than the web-based version.

Idea: in a library setting Scratch could be used to re-create scenes from books, for example.

Finally, we talked about the BBC Micro:bit which every Year 7 school kid is supposed to receive... at some point this year of the next, and had a look at Raspberry Pi. Open Zone had just received some Raspberry Pi kits they'd bought from their counterparts in North Tyneside. I had seen the Build IT kits demonstrated at the last Maker Faire UK but getting my hands on one I was less impressed. I guess it's handy for schools because it comes with a breadboard and the Pi mounted on a card (so less risk of losing one) plus some cables, LEDs, resistors... It also comes with a project booklet, but when 4 librarians have a look at the very first project and all conclude that it's not clear what one is supposed to do, I feel like my library didn't miss anything not getting those.

All in all it was an interesting day where I got to try out several tools - a bit like a "try before you buy"! And now it's time for a think with my colleagues to decide what we actually can and want to do in terms of offering coding activities for our customers young and old to learn in libraries.