computer centers for adults and children?

[majola]

Jennifer Long wrote:

> The current debate is whether to combine the childrens and adult computers
> in the same center, or keep them seperate.
>
> Jennifer Long
> Computer Services Assistant
> Missouri River Regional Library
>

Hi Jennifer,

Separating the children's computers from the adults' depends a lot on space
available, staffing resources and numbers of computers. If you have the space to
do a both/and approach, I would favor having half or at least a couple of the
childrens' computers in the children's secton of the library. However , since
many computer-interested adults arrive accompanied by like interested children,
it may be helpful to have at least  several children's computers near the adult
ones so that parents who want to keep an eye on or help their kids while using
the computers themselves. This also may be a way of keeping the monitoring of
children's behavior where the responsibility truly lies; on their parents.  An
age restriction, limiting the usage to upper elementary might be placed on the
group included in the lab setting when adults are present.

If classes are offered in your computer lab, having computers there for children
would allow for a rich curriculum of child-oriented classes on exploring all the
possibilities of computers in the world of information science and other
computing aspects. It would offer an atmosphere not possible to devise in the
upstairs or regular library setting.

An added benefit of having children's computers in the adult lab is that at
about 10 years old most kids are whizzes and may be useful as 'lab assistants'
:}   While I started saying this as a bit of humor, I've found kids to be
extremely helpful and adept at resolving many computer 'glitches' . They are
proud
to share their skills and it is beneficial, under structured circumstances,  to
celebrate these proficiencies in our children. This provides an oppotunity for
healthy inter-generational exchange in an area where kids really shine. (Of
course this kind of exchange must be closely staff monitored.)

 The flip side is that parents or other adults might not wish to have children
present at all, your sense of the 'style' of your community is probably the most
important factor, also it is crucial to evaluate how prepared your computer lab
staff might be in working  with mixed age groups. It might be advisable to have
'children's hours and adult hours' in the lab (just like there are adult swims
in a public pool for example)_

That's probably too much, but I got started brainstorming. Hope some of this
helps.

 Marcia @ Tukqila