RAMONA LIBRARY UNVEILS NEW CHILDREN’S COMPUTERS

New computers tailored to children ages 2 to 12 are ready to use at Ramona Community Library.

Library officials unveiled the two AWE Stations in the kid’s reading room Feb. 1.

The stations were funded by the Friends of the Ramona Library at a cost of $4,548 for each computer, said Branch Manager Beverlee Cabral.

“We’re very excited to have these available to the kids,” Cabral said. “AWE Stations help build early literacy skills and improves school readiness for children.”

The Advanced Workstations in Education are equipped with educational software in the areas of science, technology, reading, engineering, art and math (STREAM), said Ramona Library’s new Children’s Librarian Kelly Dunn. Ramona’s stations are platinum editions, so they include extra programs, coding software, cyber safety tools, and new interfaces and avatars, Dunn said.

The computers have colorful keyboards coded as a guide. Vowel keys are colored purple, the consonants in green, numbers in red, symbols in yellow and functions in blue.

Children are adept at using the computers’ intuitive games and activities, Dunn said, and the younger children learn to use a touchscreen and a mouse.

“Kids figure it out quickly,” she said. “These are very user-friendly. Kids pop on and they immediately know what they’re doing.”

Each free session is timed for 20 minutes.

For safety, the AWE Stations do not have access to the Internet.

On a recent Friday afternoon, 6-year-old Carlos Carrillo and sister, Sophia, 9, tried out the new computers’ educational games.

Carlos said he wanted to use the Typing Instructor for Kids software so he could learn to type letters and spell words.

“I want to come back every Friday,” Carlos told his mom, Vivian Carrillo.