My contribution to @The_School’s celebration of Poetry Month: “If We All Were Robots” by Jaymie Gerard

Our current duo of librarians at The School at Columbia University are Nadine Renazile and Talia Neffson.

As per previous years, The School celebrates National Poetry Month by having students and faculty read poems every morning over the intercom system. Shel Silverstein is a popular choice.

Nadine poked her head around the door (her space shares a wall with the Educational Technology Department’s office) and asked if anyone wanted to read a poem with a technology theme. I searched for poems about robots, and after reading a bunch aloud to Dylan Ryder, we settled on If We All Were Robots by Jaymie Gerard.

If we all were robots
Instead of girls and boys
Maybe we’d have humans
To play with as our toys

We’d keep them in our closets

And take them out for games

We’d dress them up in little clothes

And give them funny names

We’d take them to the marketplace
We’d take them to the pool
We’d listen to them singing songs
And send them off to school

We’d see them getting taller

We’d help them as they grow

We’d wish that they’d get smaller

But they don’t do that, you know

They’d grow up to be astronauts
And presidents and kings
We’d pretend that we were humans
So we could do human-like things

So we might as well be humans

If we ever get the choice

‘Cause who’d want to be robots

When we could be girls or boys?

Dylan and I simultaneously had the idea to have the computer read the poem aloud using the voice of Alex, the most human of the text-to-speech accessibility options in the Mac OS. I had to add inauthentic punctuation to change Alex’s cadence, but here’s the finished product (just close your eyes)…

App Share in the Library with faculty from @the_school

These were the things shared by faculty who attended the App Share in the Library this afternoon:

LetterReflex – shared by Joyce Tsang (@jyc_nyc)

Does your child get his b’s and d’s mixed up? How about her p’s and q’s? LetterReflex provides a fun way to help overcome common letter reversals. The first activity, Tilt It, uses kinesthetic learning to teach left from right. The second activity, Flip It, allows them to practice what they learned while honing their letter discrimination skills.

iPevo document camera shared by Gina Marcel (@fpgina) allows anyone to demo stuff on their iPad (until our AppleTV is up and running)

iBooks Author also shared by Gina, though Don Buckley pointed out that when you load a book on iTunes, Apple owns the content.

Available free on the Mac App Store, iBooks Author is an amazing new app that allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could.

FlipBoard shared by Hil Szanto (@hilszanto)

Named Apple’s iPad App of the year and one of TIME’s Top 50 Innovations, Flipboard creates a personalized magazine out of everything being shared with you. Flip through your Facebook newsfeed, tweets from your Twitter timeline, photos from Instagram friends and much more.

iDesk shared by Nadine Renazile (@infobirdie)

iDesk allows you to make flow charts, org charts, Venn diagrams, mind maps, take notes, sketches and do other diagrams with no constraints. Draw a shape, type a text, stylize it choosing from 50+ Fonts.

eClicker also shared by Nadine

eClicker is a personal response system that allows teachers to poll their class during a lesson. It provides teachers with the real-time feedback they need to be sure their messages are being received. Developed for smartphones and laptops, eClicker leverages the hardware already in the hands of many students providing a low cost polling solution for the classroom. All you need to get started is the eClicker Host app running on an iOS device, a Wi-Fi network, and students with internet-enabled devices to participate.

MindNode also shared by Nadine

MindNode is a very easy and intuitive application for collecting, organizing and outlining your thoughts and ideas as mind maps.

Popplet shared by Tabitha Johnson (@tabletj)

Great for work. Great for school. Popplet is a platform for your ideas. Popplet’s super simple interface allows you to move at the speed of your thoughts. With Popplet you can capture your ideas and sort them visually in realtime. Quickly and easily!

Flubaroo also shared by Tablitha

Grade online assessments in a single app (@flubaroo)

Vlingo shared by Don Buckley (@donbuckley)

Looking for a voice powered virtual assistant on your iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4? Look no further. In addition to search, messaging, voice dialing and directions, Vlingo integrates with your Facebook and Twitter accounts making it the most social assistant available. All functionality is now 100% free, so download Vlingo today to explore everything Vlingo can do for you.

Forms shared by Nancy Wong (@scampnyc)

Forms is a client of Google Forms (Google Docs). The Form you created on your PC can be viewed in the most suitable layout for iPhone/iPad.

Corkulous shared by Jenn Dare (@jenn_dare)

Corkulous™ idea board is the incredible new way to collect, organize, and share your ideas. Access your ideas anywhere on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch with built-in iCloud support. Share your ideas with your friends and family by storing your cork boards in Dropbox. See the demo video: http://www.corkulous.com/

Hi-5 to @fpgina for organizing another faculty iPad app share this afternoon!

Gina Marcel (@fpgina) hosted our 2nd Faculty iPad share where teachers from The School at Columbia University get together to eat, shmooze, and share iPad apps. Here are some of the ones that were shown:

Toontastic shared by Gina Marcel, K-3 Technology Integrator (@fpgina)

SymmetryShuffle shared by Amy Liebov, Kindergarten Teacher (@AmyLiebov)

SoundLiteracy shared by Ibijoke Akinole, K-2 Learning Specialist

JibJab Jr. Books shared by Tabitha Johnson, K-4 Librarian (@tabletj)

ShowMeApp shared by Aletha Haynes, 2nd Grade Teacher (@ahaynes16)

7Billion shared by Nadine Renazile, 5-8 Librarian (@infobirdie)

CharacterPad shared by Nancy Wong, K-2 Numberacy Liasion (@scampnyc)

Cube it 3D also shared by Nancy Wong