More Goodies from Students

Here I am grading again and enjoying a lovely Mother's Day all by myself. My daughter is at home in Portland, OR, but we talked and she is planning a visit in early June. In my honor (so she said) she paid off her library fine today. How much? I ask...$80.00. Ah well, she is using the library. I took a ride on my new toy, an electric bike that I named PeeWee. Here is the link to the distributor: http://www.rmartinbikes.com/
Mine is the E500 at the bottom of the page only mine is red, and yes, it does look like the bike in "PeeWee's Big Adventure." It is getting me up the steep hills in my neighborhood, and I plan to use it to run errands and go to work. Take that Big Oil!

Anyway, as always, I picked up some good links from students today:

• Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day, which I had seen before but not visited in a while: http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/
• Wes Fryer's Wiki, Teach Digital: http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/ I follow his blog but somehow had missed this great site.
• Board Games with Scott: http://www.boardgameswithscott.com/
• Donalyn Miller's Blog, The Book Whisperer: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/
• Paul Allison's Vlog: http://paulrallison.livejournal.com/
• Here is a good list of royalty free image sites that I just found at Wes Fryer's wiki: http://www.macworld.com/article/57935/2007/05/2407workingmacextra.html
  

Follow-up About Testing the Web 2.0 Waters

I posted a query to EDTECH, LM_Net, and TLC related to yesterday's blog entry where I asked how people would present Web 2.0 resources to a newcomer who was entering the waters very gingerly, first dipping a toe, the steeping out knee deep, etc. I did get some very nice responses. One person suggested that a first step should be del.icio.us, which I think is a great next thing after learning about blogs. Several people reminded me of two super resources presented by The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg: Learning 2.0 Blog and Learning 2.1 Blog.
Another similar tutorial is presented by MESQUITE, TX ISD and has a great title, Learning Through Play.

As always I am grateful for everyone's tips. I am still working on my presentation, but it is up in a rough form at my wiki which has the same name as my blog, For Whom the Bell Told.

Testing Web 2.0 Waters

I grew up swimming in cold rivers and creeks. As you may know, there are two ways of getting into the water for the first time. One method is to stick in your toe, next your foot, then the other, and gradually work your way into the water. The other is to plunge right in all at once. My dad was a great plunger. He would stand tall on the dam across Cypress Creek in Wimberley, TX, stretch a little, and then dive right in. I was not always that brave, and often used the gradual technique instead. I found myself thinking about that today as an analogy of the ways to get involved with new technology, specifically Web 2.0, for the uninitiated user. The reason I am mulling this over is because I am fixin' (as we say in TX) to give a conference presentation about Web 2.0 and also to discuss it with a class. I know that a fair number of my listeners will be relative newcomers to Web 2.0 since it is so heavily blocked at so many schools.

So I asked myself...what is the equivalent of sticking one toe in the water? Before even thinking about it, I would want to know what the heck Web 2.0 was anyway. For this, I recommend the great YouTube film called The Machine is Us/Ing Us, found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
This would be sort of like laying out your towel and applying sunscreen.I decided that first real step would be to find and follow some good educational or library related blogs. Using a blog aggregator such as Bloglines would be dipping the other toe. Next would be to learn the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia (one foot) and YouTube (the other). Moving along with the analogy, I think that learning to use a social tagging site such as del.icio.us would be next. This might be followed by wikis and Nings. What next? If I were building a heirarchy of experiences, starting with the easiest and moving along until one is fully immersed and swimming with the big fish in the Web 2.0 waters, how would I proceed? Yep, I am asking for ideas...

Must-Haves Redux

I had a lot of fun learning what other people term must-haves in the following categories:

• Hardware/gadget
• Application/software
• Web 2.0 service/application

I also learned some things. One of the most striking things I noticed was that many people who responded via email after I posted to listservs remarked that they were not using Web 2.0 resources, or not much. Because they are such a big part of my present work and experience, it this was something of a surprise though that should not have been the case. Far too many K-12 educators have no access at work due to Draconian filtering parameters. Also, many folks are hard pressed to find time to experiment with new things because of heavy schedules, lack of support such as library aides, and mountains of paperwork. Those who did say they had dipped into social networking, mostly mentioned blogs that they followed and in some cases that they were writing.

Another interesting thing was the range of gadgets that were mentioned. I had everything from TV to the George Foreman grill named as favorite device! The two mentioned most often were the cell phone and flash drives. It was interesting how many people really must have the little drives, and helped me remember how important they were to me in the past. Now I store most things online and thus use them less.

Regarding applications, several librarians mentioned their library automation, causing me to remember how essential this was in my previous life as a junior high librarian.

For the rest of this entry, I am going to paste in responses that came to me via email rather than as blog comments. The comments are, of course, there for you to see already, and I certainly thank everyone who has already commented on my previous entry or who comments to this or to it in the future.

Soooo...here are the email comments. I am off to get a George Foreman grill!

COMMENTS FROM LISTSERV MEMBERS: LM_NET, EDTECH, TLC:

This may sound negative, but I really don't care for any of the gadgets that everybody has.

I like my life to be simple. Newspapers, books, and TV.
I think that my must have's are my plain old fashioned cell phone for emergencies only (no texting/no internet/no camera/etc), pen drive to store and carry info at work and internet for communicating. (I hate making phone calls.)

Once I leave work, I leave all technology behind. If people need to get a hold of me I am at work, at home or I don't want to be found.

1. What is your one (or maybe 2) must-have gadget/hardware/gizmo/appurtenance? My Palm TX: has my calender, task list, vital data, even a Bible reader, and more -- pretty well my life is on it in other words.
2. Same question, but for computer applications? Again top one, or maybe a couple. Email is a biggie, a primary way of communication for me (I actually don't like to talk on the phone); I have also got to say a good browser since as a librarian my work involves so much information literacy dealings
3. Ditto, for Web 2.0 services--and I am very curious about this! I would say blogs and rss feeds, helps me stay up with the news from library and tech land (and commentary on news)

Cell phone. I don't even have a home phone anymore, and neither does my
husband.

EMAIL, then a web browser. I use those two more than anything.

3. Ditto, for Web 2.0 services--and I am very curious about this!

Blogs are by far my can't live without thing. I think that reading
other teacher/librarian blogs is probably my most valuable PD. I've
"borrowed" more ideas from things people write about on blogs than
almost any other
source. After that, probably wikis. I use Wikipedia a lot, and then
I'm trying to get it together to use them more with my classes.

I’m really new to blogs and such, but I’ve recently enjoyed Beachwalks with Rox.

I find her videos with short comments (as she strolls Hawaiian beaches) so calming….almost religious but more like a nice thought for the day.

http://www.beachwalks.tv/

> 1. What is your one (or maybe 2) must-have
> gadget/hardware/gizmo/appurtenance?

I had to think about this for a while. Being an old fossil, I _can_ get
along very nicely without a lot of the electronic stuff. Here in the
library, though, the automated circulation system is the top winner for
me. At home, just having a computer is a big help.

> 2. Same question, but for computer applications? Again top one, or maybe a
> couple.

Automation system at school, general apps (email, web, word processing,
spreadsheet).

> 3. Ditto, for Web 2.0 services--and I am very curious about this!

Haven't messed with this area much. I do have a family wiki, used to
keep us informed of gift ideas. That's about it.

1. What is your one (or maybe 2) must-have gadget/hardware/gizmo/appurtenance?

When driving to new locations the GPS on my Husband’s handheld computer.

For myself, on an everyday use; I guess just my computer, I’m not a gadget kind of gal.

2. Same question, but for computer applications? Again top one, or maybe a couple.

Office Suite. I use all of it, really like Excel; I use it for all sorts of things.

3. Ditto, for Web 2.0 services--and I am very curious about this!

None, I’ve looked into them, I read a couple of different people’s blogs in the library world, but that’s about it. We tried to find a good teacher monitored blog system to use with our Jr. High students and just couldn’t find one. Will look into that again to see if something has come up yet.

For number one, at home, I guess it would have to be the desktop computer, with all it’s functions, from email to downloaded games, pictures, word processing—the whole bit. I probably don’t utilize it for everything I could, but for what I do, I’d hate to give it up! And then I’m not sure if this is what you’ve got in mind, but I’d also hate to give up my George Foreman grill! (Technology of a different ilk!)

As for a cell phone, it would be farther down my list than you’d expect. I consider mine a convenience for me….not an appendage to my person!

2) I use word processing so much, for so many things, both professional and personal. Power Point (again, for presentations not only for school but for personal life things, like United Methodist Women, etc.) is another thing I use quite often.

3) Can’t really make any comment—I’ve never used wikis, etc. (except to READ Wikipedia, and I don’t think that counts!)

Number one hardware item, my cell phone. Don't own an Iphone but my cell will do many things that help me pull it together, voice mail, address book, notepad of recorded messages to myself, calendar. If folks really used all of the features on their cell phones they could cut down on the clutter they carry and help themselves stay better organized.

Number two hardware item, four in one fax, printer, copier, scanner unit, just a must have

Software:
email, home and work
Our library database TLC
District-wide opac that allows students access to almost 1 million titles (60+ schools, PreK-12)
Virtual Library that helps me integrate print and non-print sources, provide 24/7 student access to the library resources, etc.http://www.chesterfield.k12.va.us/Schools/Matoaca_HS/library.htm#research_project_hotlists

It is nothing fancy but it really helps our students

Web 2.0
Not using much yet, reading some blogs.

______________________________-

Mary Ann--I got an iPhone for Christmas and I LOVE it! My husband gave it to me so he could inherit my iPod Nano. The other gadget I can't do without is my flash drive!

As far as applications go, I'd say Windows Live email and chat.

Must-Haves in Today's Digital World

I am a purse-rummaging pocket patting person. The reason is I must know at all times that I have my essential stuff--billfold, camera, phone. Today I loaded my faithful canine amigo, Ringo, and struck out on a 3+ hour drive to spend a couple of nights with Dad. I stopped, as I always do, at Buckee's in Giddings, TX. If I were to pass it by, I think Ringo would revolt. That is where he gets his walk, and he recognizes the outermost outskirts of town. After we got back on the road and I was happily guzzling my Diet Coke with the best fast-food ice in Texas, I began patting around my general surroundings looking for my phone. I was not going to make a call--am trying NOT to engage in this dangerous pursuit--but rather just needed to know where it was. A cursory check did not yield my iPhone. I began to feel uneasy...looked and rummaged around more. No phone! Now I began to worry. It has fallen out of my pocket before...and I was just at Buckee's! What if it was lying in the parking lot or even in someone else's pocket by now? I pulled over into a parking lot on the edge of the next town and seriously rooted through my belongings. There was my phone, on the floor, passenger side. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and resumed my drive with a lighter heart. But the experience caused me to think. I. really. must. have. that. phone. If I leave the house without it, most times I will go back for it. This device is definitely the one item that I really feel I cannot get along without.

Thinking about other things that I feel so strongly about, I asked myself what computer application I would top my list. For me, it would still be email. I love all the other means of communication that I use, but email still reigns in my life as the one application that I value above all others. Finally I asked myself what Web 2.0 service or presence is the one you would miss the most, the one you would most hate to live without? This was my hardest question. One strong candidate would be del.icio.us, because it holds a history of my recent learning, and allows me to find things I need and reconstruct previous experiences. Other candidates would be networking sites such as Twitter, blogs, wikis, As much as I love Twitter and think it is important, I am going to demote it to highly desirable and declare a three way tie for things 2.0 that I value: social bookmarking, blogs, and wikis.

Overall, this mental exercise was interesting to me because all these things, with the exception of email, are things that I did not use or value as recently as five years ago. It is one more example of how technology has impacted and will continue to influence my life and the way I live. Wonder about everyone else's must-haves? I would love to hear from people:
1. What is your one (or maybe 2) must-have gadget/hardware/gizmo/appurtenance?
2. Same question, but for computer applications? Again top one, or maybe a couple.
3. Ditto, for Web 2.0 services--and I am very curious about this!

More New-to-me Links and Facts!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love teaching and I ENJOY GRADING STUDENTS' WORK! This was even true back in the old days when I taught junior high kids, mostly reading and English. The key is to craft assignments that I know ahead of time I will enjoy grading. I can remember actually being very eager to read what students would write in response to certain assignments back then. It was fun to see their creativity emerge. So here I am at the end of a semester and finishing up grading for the term. I just got started today, and already am stopping to record something new to me, a blog I had not visited before, and really really like! So here goes with my list of new info as of today:

• Blog with emphasis on librarianship and web 2.0...what's not to like about that? This blog is called LibraryCrunch ad is the work of Michael Casey, public librarian and web aficionado. If you look soon, there is a cool picture of Santa getting his caffeine fix at Starbucks. He sprinkles cool pics throughout his blog, another thing to like. And there are sound files too! Here is the address: http://www.librarycrunch.com/

• Here is another great blog (obviously I am grading an assignment where students must locate and explore a blog): http://www.techsavvyed.net/ by Ben Rimes. Today's posting has a cool site where you can create virtual dice to study probability at which, for the heck of it, I created an imaginary Magic 8 Ball with choices like no, yes, never, maybe, etc.: http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/maths/dice/

• Here is the tinyurl for the dice: http://tinyurl.com/nvoy5

Potpourri of Links--Again Learning from Students

Again I am grading...grading...and will be for the coming two weeks as the fall term (already???) comes to an end. Yesterday I started a posting with a GREAT link that I found while going over student work. I could have sworn I saved the entry but now cannot find it. Wonder where it went? I now cannot remember a thing about the link except that I wanted to be sure and share it. Anyway, I will STILL share things I glean from students' work starting with one so far today and then building from there.

• Alan Lew--I somehow missed this leader in Web 2.0 instruction, but just added him to my Twitter list. His page for that venue is: http://twitter.com/alew and from there you can find his other pages.

• TwitterLit! Wow I love this site and, while I had heard of it, had not visited until it was mentioned today by a student. Twice a day you get literary teasers, first lines from books plus links to Amazon if you are intrigued by the lines. There is also a site for kids! You can subscribe via RSS or have the teasers sent to your twitter. Fun site! http://www.twitterlit.com/

• And guess what? While I was typing, I remembered the site I wanted to share from yesterday. It is a site for teaching kids about phishing, and I think will be helpful for users of any age who need to learn about this somewhat confusing term. The site is Anti-Phishing Phil, where Phil the fish teaches the term in a game format: http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil/

• I had not visited this blog before, and it is a great resource for YA books and librarians who work with teens: http://www.teenlibrarian.com/blog.html

• Excellent educational use of a wiki is demonstrated at this site, which has received a good deal of attention for its presence. It is maintained by a computer science teacher at Westwood Schools, GA: http://westwood.wikispaces.com/#tochome5
  

Learning from my students again!

One of the best things about my job is grading papers. Yep, that's right, I enjoy it! Many times I get to know students better through their work, and I don't think I ever spend some time grading without learning something new. Today, with the weather gray and drippy outside, and sitting in the den with my dozing Dad and drowsy dog, I am happy to be occupied with grading. One of the best things I have read is that on student, after spending time exploring the ALA website, came to a better understanding of her role in matching readers with books. A first-year librarian, she is just beginning to enjoy this special part of her job, and she related a relationship she has formed with one particular student who started out by asking her the question we all get, "Where are the GOOD books." She was able to interest the girl in a book she had just finished, and now they are reading buddies. This is, of course, one of the greatest rewards of being a librarian.

Also, I picked up some new websites:

• ELGG (http://elgg.org/) is an open source social networking environment that I did not know until today. Doug Johnson shared it in his blog, and evidently it is a good one for school use.
• Truth or Fiction? (http://www.truthorfiction.com/) Like Hoaxbusters or Snopes, this site will help squelch rumors and expose hoaxes.
  
• The Loch (http://www.theloch.com/index.html) There is a whole website devoted to Paul Zindel's book The Loch and, it appears, an upcoming movie.
• The New York Times offers a treasure trove of lesson plans! Take a look: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/archive.html
• One of my students had Holocaust survivor/author Inge Aeurbacher as a guest. Here is her website: http://www.ingeauerbacher.com/default.htm
  

Top 'O My Head--Things Recalled from Internet Librarian/Internet@School

Here I am on the plane headed home after what has been an incredibly informative and stimulating Internet Librarian/Internet@School West Conference. Not only is this the ONE conference where I learn more than at all others combined, it also takes place in beautiful Monterey. I know, tough gig, but someone has to go. This year, not surprisingly, the buzz was all about Web 2.0. Another big theme was gaming, and this area has taken on new potential in my thinking. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to just put down some thoughts about the conference and what I learned, without looking back at any of my notes, the conference schedule, the book of presentations, or anything. The idea is to see what was compelling enough to rise to the top of the rich broth of ideas, impressions, tips, and other information that is bubbling in my creative cauldron after this intense week of learning and sharing with colleagues. So here are some things right off the top of my head. When I get home and have all my resources handy and time to go through them, I will post again and follow up on these and other things that I want to share that I learned this past week.

· You can podcast from your phone! There is a number you can call up and then when you talk into your phone, your comments will be recorded. Then you can send them as a .wav file to the location of your choice. I have not tried this and do not remember the URL or name of the service, but I am dying to try it out!

· This is another fun phone trick: You can use this Internet service to set up for yourself a free phone number in any area code in the US. So if you want to sound high-falutin and give yourself a ritzy code, you can. If you have clients/friends in that AC, they can thereby leave you messages without having to call long distance. Then you can call that phone from your other number(s) and check your voicemail. Another thing you can do is have THAT number call your “REAL” number at a certain time. That would be handy if you were headed for an event and wanted an excuse to leave. You could just answer the call from yourself and say with regret that you have been called away.

· Ask.com’s new layout is cool. They call it the 3D display. There are three columns presented when you get search results, each offering a specialized type. I will talk about this more, but it does make a lot of sense as far as offering choices to the searcher.

· Layout in general is a theme I noticed with sites. The goal of many home page services, blog aggregators, and searching tools is to come up with cool and innovative ways to present information via layout. Google continues with its traditional list by and large, but is ranking results a bit differently in recognition of the fact that people are more and more interested in video as opposed to just text.

· Some searching trends include

o personalized searching

o blended searching

o social searching…more about these when I can refer to my notes and get online.

· Ask.com again…this time maps. They have some very cool features

o Ask gives not only driving directions, but also WALKING DIRECTIONS. They are the only search engine to do this.

o In Ask, you have drawing tools at the bottom of a map. One thing you can do is use the circle tool to select a small specific area on a city map, maybe several square miles or less. You can then search within that area for locations such as restaurants, theaters, businesses, etc. So if you are in San Francisco and hungry for sushi, you can do a search of your immediate surroundings and find what is nearby.

· Wikipedia is here to stay. As librarians, we should join in, tending it like a garden. School librarians and administrators should keep an eye on entries for their schools. What, your school does not have an entry? Are you sure? Have you checked? Your little darlings may have put one up with all kinds of creative information. If you have one, and many schools and school libraries do, you need to check it frequently to see how your scholars have been tinkering with it.

· Gaming belongs in libraries. I am so out of the loop on this that I really did not know how may purely educational games there are out there that are beyond reproach. Furthermore, the creative teacher/librarian can use the more popular games as hooks to get students interested in their subjects or in the library and its services.

· RSS—you need to be informed about its value and use it to share your web presences and to gather what you want from the net.

· Right before I came out to this conference, I was a little worried because I feel that I am spread out all over the place on the Internet. I have information at Blogger, PBWiki, Flikr, Picasa, my university web pages, a domain that we bought for our department, several email addresses, Nancy Pearl’s BookLust wiki, the Librarians’ Ning, Twitter, and I am probably leaving something out. But this week it occurred to me that this is not necessarily a BAD thing. Being out there a lot is a way to communicate with lots of people. What I need to do is something I am proud to say I have already done. Just before I left for the conference, I made a page at my PBWiki site where I provided links to all the other places I am on the net. Regardless of whether other people use this, it will help me to keep up with everything and simply my life. Good for me!

· There are many more things, and likely more important things, that I need to call up and share. But my computer battery is on the way down, so I will save them for later.

Fun Things from Internet Librarian/Internet@School

In addition to this conference being wonderfully informative, it is always lots of fun. Here are some fun-stuff memories:

· The other night I was being shown to a table at a restaurant on Old Fisherman’s Wharf where I was going to dine alone. Someone called out “Mary Ann! Come sit with us!” To my amazement someone in a group of what I would call “younguns” recognized me from my presentation and they made me welcome at their table. It was great to visit with all these enthusiastic and savvy young librarians! On the way out, on of my new friends noticed my name tag and said “OH! I know YOU!” I had just signed on to follow her on Twitter a day or two earlier and she recognized my name! She was…Desert Librarian! Very fun and cool person and my new ftf Twitter buddy!

· Another night I enjoyed dining with a librarian I have known virtually for a long time, but had not met ftf. And of all things, she is a Texan. Carolyn Foote, Westlake High School Librarian, gave a great presentation about working with administrators to get them involved in Web 2.0 learning, both as a service to them and as a way to gain access for teachers and students. Her positive and constructive ideas are worth locating via her presentation online. I will look for that URL to share. We had a great time talking about our common interests and concerns regarding web access and the need to make it more reasonable for kids and teachers. It seems a little ironic that we had to travel to California to meet, when we have been in the same place many times at Texas for other conferences.

· Walking down to the harbor and watching the harbor seals is not to be missed. They look like big birds balancing on the rocks in the bay.

· The events that are part of the conference are wonderful. One night there was an exhibit to highlight the opening of exhibits, with delectable refreshments. Another night there was an evening presentation on gadgets and also featuring a really cool project that involves videotaping libraries and librarians across America. There was a 3^rd evening event that I missed, but wish I had been around for. It was held at the local library and highlighted various libraries and what they are doing with Web 2.0.

· I did give myself a treat the last half of the last day. I drove back up the coast toward San Jose, where I met my flight today. I spent last night in the nearby town of Half Moon Bay, a little coastal village with wonderful shops and restaurants.

· Best of all, I am heading home feeling fine! Last year on the last day of the conference, I fell on a hiking path and broke my wrist. I flew home so high on painkillers that the plane may have been optional. By the time I got through the subsequent surgery, it was hard to remember the many things I had learned. THIS time I want to do justice to my experience by sharing my new found knowledge. I hope to do that soon, within the next three days, while my notes will make sense and my recollections will be accurate.

WOW! Voice Thread!

I have been practicing my avoidance skills, looking around the Net for new and different things rather than going over my presentation for next Monday, which I SHOULD be doing. Anyway, I came across a great Web 2.0 tool just now, that I have not seen or heard about before. It is Voice Thread! The idea is that you build a presentation/conversation around an image or group of images. Your audience can chime in either with voice comments or with text messages. The picture, which is the centerpiece, will be in the middle, with everyone's avatars and comments clustered around it. There is a great demo if you go to the site. Take a look! It is really cool! And who knows? Maybe it will be new to your filter and thus fly under the radar at school! I keep hoping...anyway here is the URL:
http://fresh.voicethread.com/
I am off to sign up and then report to my wiki and practice my presentation. Otherwise, I will have to go to 43 Things or TadaList and nag myself online!

My Take on MySpace

The other day in class I said to students..."I am thinking of a technological development that can pose a threat to young people. It is something often used by child predators. It is also a place where people can get together for sex. Parents and teachers should be teaching children about the dangers of this thing I am describing. It can even be deadly! What am I describing?" They were slow to respond, probably suspecting I was trying to trick them (true, I was). Finally someone timidly offered...MySpace??? I replied "NOPE! I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE AUTOMOBILE! After all, kids have been having sex in cars for years! Cars and parking lots are often used for abductions. Far too many teens die in cars every year." My point is that MySpace is an entity that, in and of itself, is benign--just like the car. BUT people can certainly use either for nefarious purposes. So here are some comments on MySpace...

Every parent and educator should visit this community and see what it is all about. We should urge parents to teach their children safe and smart Internet use, certainly including the use of online communities like MySpace and FaceBook. As someone said the other day regarding how to find resources about online safety, two words come to mind: Nancy Willard! Do a search for her name, use her resources, and you will be well on the way to helping yourself, your colleagues, your students, and their parents.

So what about MySpace? First of all, its original intent was to provide a place for artistic types such as musicians, writers, and artists to meet, share their work, and exchange information and ideas. Of course it has grown exponentially, but this is still a very large part of what goes on at MySpace. Now you can find everything from religious groups to zoos with a healthy dose of library sites included in MySpace sites.

As part of a class assignment, I am asking students to find and describe one GOOD/constructive MySpace site, and also offer one "bad" example that is the type of site you would want to steer youngsters away from. In keeping with my pledge to do the same assignment myself, here are my "good" and "bad" sites. There are so many good ones I have trouble picking. As for the bad, I know there are lots but I do not intend to waste my time seeking out a large number.

First the BAD and a disclaimer. I am not going to post a link. I don't even suggest you do this. But I thought to myself, how can I find a really terrible site? I thought of an organization that exists for men who seek to justify their interest in child predation. I don't even want to name the organization but you can probably figure it out. I did the search and came up with some very troubling sites. I just do not want to go further in this blog with a description of what I found, but it was convincing evidence that MySpace has offensive sites.

OK, I thought, how about something more likely to turn up for a kid? I did what I suggest you do. I went to MySpace and did a school search. I searched for my own high school alma mater and for current students. I did find sites tnhat looked to me to belong to kids younger than the age limit. I also found sites where too much information was offered for the safety of the users, regardless of their ages. I found one without looking too hard that I would want to know about as a parent. The page beloned to "Sexy Kitty," who says she is 16 and posts with a lot of profanity and general silliness. She could easily be younger. She does not have security set for her page, so it is out there for all to see. This is the kind of page that is all too common, and with close reading I could no doubt track her down. I already know what she looks like and the small town school she attends. I am betting her parents have no idea that page is out there, but I found it quite easily.

NOW FOR THE GOOD:
Visiting the bad examples is not fun. It is enough to make me question the entire community. What I need now are compelling GOOD examples. They are most definitely there. Here are some constructive types of sites:

• Political sites...think of any current Presidential candidate and visit his/her site. This is an environment that cannot be ignored in an election year. Howard Dean taught a lot of people that back in the previous campaign when he spread his information via the Internet in the early stages of the campaign.
• Libraries. There are some fantastic library MySpace sites out there! Here is one: http://www.myspace.com/libraryloft I just used the first one I came to, because there are so many. This one does offer a blog entry about MySpace safety with a link to Nancy Willard's site.
• Church Youth Groups: You can find a lot of these site, but not browse them because they appropriately are secure sites for their members. Here is one: http://groups.myspace.com/Trinitypresbyterianchurch
• Musicians and artists:
• My daughter booked a coast to coast tour from her MySpace site. She is an independent singer/songwriter, specializing in Americana. Here is the link: http://www.myspace.com/emilyherring
• Don't just go to hers, though. Here is one I really like, because he is an artist as well as musician, with amazing original and creative work in both areas: http://myspace.com/grayart
• Here is a publicist who works works with a lot of musicians, including my daughter: http://myspace.com/americanmediapro
  
• OK all of those have some connection to my daughter, but there are hundreds of others out there. Try any musician or artist you have ever heard of and see what I mean! If the person does not have his/her own site, there will be a fan site.
  

Assignment for Me and For My Students!

Eons ago when I taught 7th grade Language Arts, I would often tell students that I should not give them an assignment that I was not willing to do myself. So if they were assigned a topic upon which to write, I would assign myself the same task. Students seemed to like the idea that I was doing the same work they were asked to do, and of course I would "turn in" my finished product to them. I also did this from time to time as a librarian. I drew the line at doing a science project, but I would tell them that I had conducted research in the same manner and on the same topics as they were being asked to do. Of course in any school library, the assignment should start with the collection/available materials in order to be sure it is reasonable for students to complete, so that makes plenty of sense.

Well, the other day I got an idea for updating an assignment for students in my class, Internet for School Librarians. The purpose of this assignment is to get students to explore educational Web 2.0 resources. My experience is that many of them have little or no experience in this rapidly growing area. They may be familiar with the term "blog," but most seem lost when I mention "vlog," "twitter," or even "podcast." Many are quick to tell me that MySpace is BAD, but admit they have never visited the site at all. This is the gist of the assignment:

1. Visit Wikipedia and report back. Tell about at least two entries. One should be an article that you would allow students to use and another an article that you would not recommend.
2. Visit MySpace. Describe one good and one not so good page that you see.
3. Visit one educational podcast. Describe.
4. Visit one educational wiki. Describe.
5. Visit one educational ning. Describe.
6. Visit one educational twitter. Describe.
7. Visit one educational podcast. Describe
8-9. Visit two outstanding blogs: librarian or teacher. This is three separate entries, one per blog. Tell about them each in turn.

In addition to asking students to report on their impressions of these sites, I am pledging to do the same. Thus, in future postings I will report my feelings about the above mentioned resources. Not everything resonates with everyone. While I find all aspects of online communication interesting, some to not appeal to me personally. This is as it should be! If we all try to blog, vlog, podcast, twitter, IM, email, and otherwise express ourselves, we will spread ourselves far too thin! As I go on my personal odyssey through various online entities, I will share my impressions. Meanwhile I wonder, which ones resonate with you?

Startup Process

I am launching this blog on Sunday, January 28. I have already tried two other blog spaces, Bloglines and WordPress. Both of these seemed disappointing to me. I did not like the looks of WordPress after I started up there, and thought Bloglines was less intuitive than I hoped. So far, this is my favorite and the one I think I will use.