Beyond the Wakefields

A web design workshop is one of the most valuable programs you can offer teens at your library. Most teens spend a lot of time on the internet and as the proliferation of social networking sites shows, they are interested in having their own little corner of the universe. Whether they are designing a website to sell their homemade t-shirts, posting their poetry and quotes, or changing the background on their MySpace, web design skills are useful both in their current lives and as potential future job skills.

Our web design workshop is a basic overview of internet safety, basic layout and design skills, What You Get editors (WYSIWYG), basic HTML, basic blogging and web hosting. We used the two computers in the young adult room and I set up my laptop in between with a powerpoint presentation in the middle so they could look at screenshots and instructions while they used the WYSIWYG editor on their own computers. Ideally a computer lab with a projector would help teach more students at a time but they got really individualized attention. I made a very simple, somewhat ugly website and explained all the different pieces of it, and talked them through rebuilding the exact same website to see how its done. The program was very introductory and I think a more advanced session would be necessary for anyone who really wanted to get into web design.

A lot of librarians are concerned about teaching their children and teens internet safety skills. Incorporating these skills into a web design course is an easy way to have a captive audience for a topic teens don’t necessarily want to hear. I give about a two minute speech about not posting your exact location, using a psuedonym or just your first name, and not giving away too much information in your posts (like: We hang out every day at the library or I was walking home from JFK school and went to Jimmy’s Pizza). It was simple and to the point. I think some of the internet safety craze is a little overblown, especially since it wasn’t all that long ago that I was a teenager using the internet, but it is appropriate to include this in your lesson.

I am not a crafty person. I took up scrapbooking one summer but gave up because the pages I created never looked anywhere near as good as the magazines. One of the women who works in our children’s room is amazing with crafts. She can come up with a craft on any theme for any age group and have them all be different. I am the complete opposite. But last year when I went to visit the schools to promote the summer reading program,a girl entering the 6th grade asked, “Are you going to do any crafts?” with a look on her face I couldn’t ignore. She had grown up going to the library and just because she was joining the YA program didn’t mean she wanted to give up doing crafts. And even though I’m totally inept at crafts, I told her I would.

This summer we did crafts on three different days. The first day was duct tape crafts. This in some ways continues the craft I did last year as I bought way too much duct tape and we’ll probably be doing these crafts for years. Last summer we made wallets and roses. The day before Valetine’s Day we also made roses in the YA room and that was quite a draw. This year we stuck to the summer theme. We made beach bags, water bottle holders or visors. We used patterns from Pack-O-Fun Magazine.

The second day of crafts was beading. We used pony beads to make penguins and Kenny from South Park. This was very popular and the teens really enjoyed themselves. The patterns for these and many other beading projects can be founds at Making Friends.

The third craft day was Lava Lamps and monkeys. The lava lamps were created out of empty soda bottles, water, cooking oil, and powdered tempera paint. I got the instructions off one of the YALSA listservs. Several librarians have described these as very popular, but I thought they looked rather disappointing. My two teens loved making them though and made about three apiece (We had extra supplies due to the low turnout). The monkeys were made from pipe cleaners and pom poms also from Pack-O-Fun Magazine.