Riverdale School
By Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 8/1/1998
Riverdale School is a small K-8 school in Portland, OR--my home town--whose students lead the way in creating Web site content. Marian Creamer, Riverdale's librarian (mcreamer@riverdale.k12.or.us), has taken the position that she should impart knowledge to the students and then, as she told me, "get out of the way." The student involvement in the site has made it the SLJ Online Library Web Site of the Month.
The library part of the site is small--content that might be on other library pages is part of Riverdale's main site. But Creamer works with students on the entire site. Students, she said, have signed a user policy, have been taught the skills, "are trusted, for the most part," and have taken off, creating some outstanding pages. The Salmon Page is now one of the ALA 's 700+ Great Web sites, and the Earthquake and Volcano Page has won a $3,000 local education award for excellence.
But the true Web genius of Riverdale school is seventh-grader Maddy Blount. In fifth grade, Maddy showed an interest in the Web, so she learned HTML. With the help of fellow students, she created pages for authors Karen Hesse and Lois Lowry when they visited Riverdale. But Maddy's masterpiece is her "Virtual Tour of Egypt." Assigned a report on Egypt, Maddy was told to use "a visual." Her solution? A Web tour that asks visitors "Will you enter the tomb?" Creamer told me that Maddy now tutors her in Web site creation. "She's quite amazing!" said Creamer.
--Walter Minkel (wmink@teleport.com), Multnomah County (OR) Library School Corps Technology Trainer
