12 Ideas for Creative Computer Classes @ Your Library

Jennifer Bowman of Grafton-Midview (OH) Public Library recently asked the collective wisdom of the PubLib online discussion group for ideas “beyond the basic computer classes”.  A lot of folks replied with examples of tech classes that have been successful at their libraries, and here are a dozen of those ideas for you to consider trying at your library:

• In October/Nov we are going to offer a how to make a fantastic Christmas letter – teach people how to paste photos into Word, create boxes for captions.  That kind of stuff.
• Our instructors have done sessions on making calendars (the month by month type with photos.)
• We also taught EBay, digital photography, office productivity (mostly Word and Excel), email, searching (at multiple levels) and computer basics. The advanced searching classes sometimes were themed (travel, genealogy, etc.)
• Internet irritants: spam, viruses, popups.
• How to edit photos with free or cheap software, i.e., software with camera, Picasa, Photoshop Elements.
• How to make church bulletins and flyers in Word (lots of people don’t have publisher)
• how to write Christmas letters with fancy fonts, adding pictures, where to find free clip art and photos on Web, use mail merge to receiver’s names, etc.
• Open Office [http://www.openoffice.org/why/]
• Using computers to create interesting scrapbooking pages
• Making family-wide or company-wide Google calendars, where each person makes their own personal calendar, but everyone can see everyone else’s personal calendar.
• Where to find free eBooks – http://ebooksinlibraries.blogspot.com/2012/04/finding-free-and-cheap-ebooks.html
• Where to find free audiobooks: Librivox

Strategies for Job-Seekers Using Public Computers

A recent thread on the Publib Discussion List for Public Librarians aired ideas for public access computers that are used heavily by job-seekers.  The issue addressed is of patrons having a difficult time completing an online job application and/or filling out an unemployment application claim on computers that have a 1-hour time limit.

These two posts from Claudia Race provide ideas you might want to try at your library:

• [Publib] Public Access Computers for Job Seekers Claudia Race
• [Publib] Public Access Computers for Job Seekers Claudia Race