HIT: Microsoft Family Night (Long)

[Marge Cox <mcox@ECICNET.ORG>]

Dear Colleagues,

Here our the answers that I received about the Microsoft Family
Night.  I really appreciate people's willingness to share their
experiences.
Thanks!
Marge

I have participated in this as a librarian guest and as a host.  Both
times I saw a lot of materials that would be useful for learning on
the computer and also some that would provide fun and games.  Parents
and children had an opportunity to see the software being used....we
had minor difficulty with the computers that night but nothing
insurmountable.  Parent response was mixed...great idea to should you
be selling this?  Promoting this?  What about our parents who work for
other groups?  But there was no hard sell and the people who won the
drawings went away happy.  An added plus was that we were able to
purchase software for the school.  Go for it.
Leslie Greaves Radloff  Teacher/Librarian
Emanuel Lutheran School
W.St. Paul, MN

We had one last school year it was met with overwhelming response in
the = elementary and so so response on the secondary level.  It is a
big = advertisement for Microsoft but it is also a way to showcase the
= library's involvement with technology.  We received some software =
freebies and it encourages parents to by products so the school can =
receive points towards free products.
Rocco Staino
Keefe Library=20
North Salem Schools
North Salem, NY 10560

We did it at one of my schools last month.  If you have NO technology
at your school, it is probably interesting.  We found it to be just a
blatant sales pitch with nothing new in the way of information for us
or our families. The presenter was NOT wonderful - any one of my staff
members could have done a better job.
Jamie Murphy Boston, Librarian
A KidsConnect Volunteer
Davis Joint Unified School District
Birch Lane Elementary, 1600 Birch Ln.
&  Pioneer Elementary, 5212 Hamel St.
Davis, CA 95616
916-757-5395/5413(FAX)
& 757-5480/5423(FAX)
jamieb@dcn.davis.ca.us
Visit the Birch Lane Home Page at http://www.birchlane.davis.ca.us

We've had one MS Family night and plan one more. The progam
is, of course, MS-centric. They demonstrate, for the most part,
MS products and their giveaways are certainly no reason to
have the program (cheap cheap cheap). But they did provide
us with an enthusiastic, knowledgable presenter who demonstrated
many nifty uses of technology, introduced our parents to a new
network and internet system at one of  our schools... and
helped to get ppl excited about technology.

This fall we are opening a new school (the first in years
and years and years and years) ... we are also in the middle
of a community effort to bring technology to light...
(businesses having developed a new foundation designed to
help bring state of the art technology into our schools).
With the new school, we will be opening a new lab...
(etc etc) and we're bringing MS back to do a presentation
for the entire community, k12. We warn ppl ahead of
time as best we can that it's partly a MS sales job...
but we felt the benefits outweighed the not-too-
terribly-heavy sales pitch. The price is right...
 -- Joni Rathbun | jrathbun@orednet.org | lincolncity.org/schools --
                     Monthly Newsletter: Bookmarks
                    http://lincolncity.org/bookmarks

I scheduled an evening last year and thought it was great! I have
another one scheduled for Apr. 22nd. Contact lvicoli@msn.com for more
info. Peggy Beck  J.F. Cooper School Cherry Hill, NJ 08003

We had one of these 2 years ago.  It was mainly an
advertisment for Microsoft software.  They did give us time to speak
about technology in our local schools and after the presentation they
had several computers set up for people to play with the software.
We had over 100 people turn out.  I still am of two minds about the
whole thing. On one hand, it was a giant advertising ploy.  On the
other hand, it did give people an opportunity to find out more about
what we are doing locally and to try software before they bought it.
No sales were made that night, but certificates were available to be
used a local stores giving the school credit towards free software
depending on how many people redemed their certificates.  I think
part of the success would depend on the presenter.
 Karen Stevens, Librarian Valley
Elementary School Bensalem, PA 19020 kstevens@bciu.k12.pa.us

We here at Harwich Elementary School LMC have had 2 Microsoft Tech
Family Nites.... our presenter was Marianne Milanes It was GREAT!!:-)
it is NOT a selling nite...it is an informational presentation with
extra computers to "play with" before and after the
presentation...our first was a demo finding info for a dinosaur
report... the second was a demo on info gathering using a "Mystery"
format...... the programs were well recieved and the school LMC
received free software for the # of attendees!!
Mary_Ann Albertine
LMS\ITS
KidsConnect Volunteer
Harwich Elementary LMC
Harwich, Cape Cod, MA, USA
albertin@harwich.edu
albertin@capecod.net
__________________________
Marge Cox
Noblesville Schools
Media Services Coordinator
Phone 317-773-3171
FAX 317-773-7845

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