LIBRARY UPDATE: “Carving Out a New Path”

What are you looking for when you run a program? Organizations & institutions may say “How many people showed up?” (Output). As an educator, I say, “Of the participants that did show up, what did they learn & what will they do with that knowledge after they leave?” (Impact)

Part of running these Adult Tech classes through Switch at Salmon Public Library is to encourage new patron’s to visit their local library. And that’s exactly what has been happening. Perhaps not seeing a reason before, certain interests of theirs are being perked enough to participate.

We had a great time last night teaching our Adult Life-long learners how to 3D Scan using our Shining 3D scanner as well as how to operate our ZMorph VX Multitool (This time with the CNC milling head). Maybe my favorite quote so far from a class, “This is a lot easier then watching 7hrs of youtube videos.”

What I love about these classes is to hear the projects our life long learners want to pursue with access to this technology. For example, a retired chiropractic doctor, who hobbies in tinkering and building, has been sending out his circuit board designs to a company in Indiana for developing new ways to stimulate muscles via electronic frequency control. And now knowing this machine exists in our library, will attempt to carve his own motherboards right in Salmon! As an educator of this technology I couldn’t ask for anything more then to see how the community uses it. I look forward to going on this journey and learning together, much like the roman dodecahedron project with the 3D printer.

What project do you have in mind?