Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
washingtonpost.com
Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
1–10 of 47 posts
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#2I can’t help but think a car would have been a better delivery mechanism but then Google wouldn’t get much press from it. Doing “good things” just for better optics really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#3I can’t help but think a car would have been a better delivery mechanism but then Google wouldn’t get much press from it. Doing “good things” just for better optics really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Probably be cheaper in the long term to give each kid a cheap eReader with a digital library subscription too.
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#4This is in the county, Montgomery, where Virgina Tech is based. They have a very large UAV program there. So much so that they applied for a campus-wide FAA exemption. I think it's cool if a bit useless. But if you have a hammer, everything else is a nail. Books have been delivered electronically for decades. Electronically flying a physical book doesn't look to be our future.
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#5I can’t help but think a car would have been a better delivery mechanism but then Google wouldn’t get much press from it. Doing “good things” just for better optics really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Today, sure, using a van would be much more efficient. But this is probably a way to test and improve the technology, working towards making it more efficient than a van.
More importantly, the optics here are not just about you and me and other adults. Think about it how it looks to a kid. You can have your library books show up in a van, and that might be fun, but if you could have a drone drop off your library books? What kid wouldn't sit around outside all day waiting for their books to arrive?
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#6I can’t help but think a car would have been a better delivery mechanism but then Google wouldn’t get much press from it. Doing “good things” just for better optics really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#7Wow, I would love to see some research done on this. Does drone delivery of books improve reading rates among public school children? My hypothesis: No.
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#8This seems insane. Why not digitally deliver any e-book in a plain text instead of this pr stunt?
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#9Wow, I would love to see some research done on this. Does drone delivery of books improve reading rates among public school children? My hypothesis: No.
That'll happen with the link to the Predator program. Read your assigned books, or else...
Re: Google-backed drones will drop library books to kids in SW Virginia
#10Wow, I would love to see some research done on this. Does drone delivery of books improve reading rates among public school children? My hypothesis: No.
It doesn't exactly sound like goal #1 is improving reading rates. The article discusses "readers" as the main audience. Which I think is really important to understand. There are a lot of readers out there for whom the pandemic created unnecessary stress and inconvenience, students included.
Personally my three kids would have used this like crazy over the last couple months, when they were stuck with whatever they could check out before the local library closed. The drone delivery is a bonus but also it would have been the only way to get books. Aside from learning and enjoyment, the book-reading sessions are converted into AR test scores and classroom-by-classroom cumulative reading word counts, which are reasonably good motivators for many.