There's an App for That

Here is Jane's Elearning Pick of the Day's list of iPhone and iPod Touch apps for productivity and education. Do you have any apps for education or productivity you like?

MovieClips

Here's an easy, free, & legal way to find and share clips from movies:

With over 12,000 movie clips, you can search, find, view, discuss and share scenes from your favorite movies.

for a year, the team at MOVIECLIPS has worked tirelessly to collect clips and make them completely searchable by actor, title, genre, occasion, action, mood, character, theme, setting, prop, and even dialogue. This makes it simple to find a scene fast. We are hopeful that you’ll use this powerful search to discover new movies. For that reason, we've included links with each clip to easily buy or rent the feature-length movie.

While is is far from exhaustive (What? No Goldie Hawn as a librarian in Foul Play!), it is a place to start if you need a discussion starter or video clip for another use.

Libraries and Museums Online

MakeUseOf.com has a nice round-up of some libraries and museums that have digitized collections. Included are the Library of Congress, National Library of Scotland, Smithsonian, British Museum, British Library, The Hermitage, and the Louvre.

Another resource MakeUseOf points out is the European Virtual Museum. This collaboration among 20 museums has these features:

• Browse historic items from over 20 museums across Europe.
• View items by country, museum, time period BC and categories.
• Each item has it is own page with detailed related information.

Wordle Trick

Here is a handy trick for Wordle--you can keep words together in phrases if you use the tilde between words. Here is a blog post that explains it http://www.jamiekeddie.com/602.

And here is my Wordle using the trick!

Dear Snta Clas--

Even Santa is into texting, apparently. For a "nominal fee," Santa will send a child 3 text messages prior to Christmas and, for an additional fee, one on Christmas morning. According to a Burnsville Mall spokesperson:

We thought [Santa texting] was clever, something fun, trendy and different that would appeal to children. We think it adds to the whole holiday experience for the kids.

Read more here.

In other Santa communication news, the US Postal Service reversed its earlier decision to block Santa's mail sent to North Pole, Alaska. The nationwide Operation Santa program uses volunteers to answer the letters. USPS made the decision after one of the volunteers answering the letters turned out to be a registered sex offender. USPS has tightened security and screening for volunteers.

Canadian children can write to Santa, who has his own postal code HOH OHO, or email their requests via a form on Canadian Post's web site.

And, just to brag about my own relationship with Santa--I taught him how to email and search the Internet when I was teaching the Senior Techies program in southeastern Minnesota. Actually--I taught two different guys in two different towns who claimed they were Santa. They had pictures and everything! How is that possible?!

An Interesting "What If?"

What if the earth had rings like Saturn?



Can't really find out more about who did this, but it is interesting.

Flu Resources

From Minitex Reference Services blog:

Both Gale and EBSCO have begun offering free, authoritative information on the H1N1 and seasonal flu for both health practitioners and the public. This content is pulled from each vendor's proprietary resources, but is available to all at no cost.
www.gale.cengage.com/flu/
www.ebscohost.com/flu/

Thanks to both EBSCO and Gale for their quick response to this need. Please share these links with colleagues, family, and friends (and consider plugging Gale's widget into your library's website).

More on the ELM Blog.

Free Bookmarks

Just in case we haven't given you enough bookmarks--or not the ones you want--the Federal Reserve has a series of historical figures bookmarks available free. Shipping is free, too. Since they are from the Federal Reserve, most of those featured on the bookmarks are also on US coins or bills, but there are a few others. You can order up to 400 of each. You can also download a PDF of each bookmark. The entire Federal Reserve Publications Catalog is worth browsing for other resources on financial education, banking history, economics, and more. Most publications are free.

Copyright Resource

Columbia University Libraries/Information Service has re-designed and updated it Copyright Advisory Office. From the site:

The Copyright Advisory Office of Columbia University has a central mission to address, in a creative and constructive manner, the relationship between copyright law and the work of the university in order to best promote research, teaching, library services, and community involvement. To that end, this office:

• Addresses issues of fair use, copyright ownership, and publishing arrangements in furtherance of higher education and the advancement of knowledge;
• Provides copyright information and education resources for the university community;
• Supports innovative policies, practices, and contracts to foster the creation, preservation, and accessibility of information resources; and
• Undertakes research and exploration of copyright issues to provide original understandings of the law and its importance.

The site includes an extensive section on Fair Use, including a fair use checklist (PDF).

Useful Resources

The Shakespeare Quartos Archive

The Shakespeare Quartos Archive is a digital collection of pre-1642 editions of William Shakespeare's plays. A cross-Atlantic collaboration has also produced an interactive interface for the detailed study of these geographically distant quartos, with full functionality for all thirty-two quarto copies of Hamlet held by participating institutions.

Asked & Answered: Everyday Mysteries: Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress

Everyday Mysteries will help you get the answers to these and many other of life's most interesting questions through scientific inquiry. In addition, we will introduce you to the Library of Congress' rich collections in science and technology.

Everyday Mysteries is both browsable by question or keyword searchable. All of the questions presented on this Web site were asked by researchers and answered by librarians from the Library's Science Reference Services.

Question & Answer Center: US Census

The database can be searched by keywordor browsed a page at a time (there are 169 pages). You can also ask a question and there is an RSS feed so you can be alerted to new database entries. Questions and answers cover a wide variety of topics.

Here are the Top 10 Census Questions Asked--and answered with links to the source. Very handy.

USA.gov Frequently Asked Questions
USA.gov, the portal for US Government information and resources, has a FAQ section with more than 2500 asked questions--and the answers. You can search by keyword or by topic from a drop down menu. In addition you can ask a question via email or use live chat to find information.

On the Plus Side for Social Network

This morning on MPR's Future Tense, Jon Gordon discussed a University of Minnesota study on how online social network sites such as Facebook can engage youth in world events, build community, and generate real world impact. The research has been funded with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (New Facebook Applications to Engage Youth in News).

Early findings show that these networks can have a positive impact on student engagement and learning. Dr. Christine Greenhow, lead investigator on the study, responded to Gordon's question on why educators have not incorporated more social networking into their teaching by mentioning the same things we hear in MILI--fear of the unknown, lack of training, privacy issues, and time. MILI participants will be able to put some of those fears to rest. You can listen to the segment at the Future Tense link above.

A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project dispels some of the myths that social networking, mobile phones, and other Internet use do not lead to social isolation, as some previous research suggested. In fact, there's plenty of evidence that people who spend a lot of time online have fuller social lives. People’s use of the mobile phone and the Internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks. When researchers examined people’s full personal network – their strong and weak ties – Internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks.

Apostophe Police

Authors of all those signs in store windows that say, "Apple's 4/$1" or "Pant's 50% off," can avoid the apostrophe police if they consult this flowchart to determine whether or not an apostrophe is necessary. http://apostrophe.me/ Students, however, will still need guidance from a style manual.

In some style manuals, you do not use an apostrophe for plurals of an abbreviation or a number, which contradicts the first example:
The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers: "Do not use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation or a number." Examples include acronyms such as PhDs and VCRs.

The Chicago Manual of Style: "So far as it can be done without confusion, single or multiple letters, hyphenated coinages, and numbers used as nouns... form the plural by adding s alone." Examples are SOSs, CODs and IOUs.

As the flowchart says, be consistent.

Want to Read a Vook?

I learned about "vooks" at the recent Minnesota Library Association Conference in a presentation on copyright. The publisher Simon & Shuster has introduced a combination book and video--Vook--that let you read and watch the content blended into a complete story. According to the Vook web site:

You can read your book, watch videos that enhance the story and connect with authors and your friends through social media all on one screen, without switching between platforms.

You can read (watch? ratch? wead?) the content in a browser-based application that does not require a download or you can download an app from iTunes for your Apple mobile device. With a vook you can:

• Read your book
• Watch videos that highlight key moments in the story
• View visual how-to’s
• Connect with authors and other readers.

One can see the potential for an all-in-one-experience for students that expands written text with videos, explanations, and more. Offering browser-based options eliminates one barrier that ebook readers (Kindle, Sony ebook reader, and Nook, the new B&N ebook reader) create.

The whole paperless/online/ebook world is one to watch for education. This latest entry faces some challenges--limited titles available, Apple mobile only, at least for now, ebook readers already in some peoples' hands, and probably a few more. Including the reluctance I have to call anything a "vook."

Readers for Life

James Patterson, the prolific author of thrillers and mysteries for adults as well as several series for young adults, has created a Web site "dedicated to making kids readers for life." Called Read Kiddo Read, it is packed with recommended reading lists, reading guides, a community forum, a newsletter, and much more. Take a look; there is a lot there!

Mr. Patterson is a big supporter of libraries. At the recent AASL Conference in North Carolina, he told the crowd,

It’s time for librarians to start making a lot more noise. School libraries are not a luxury, they are a necessity.

You can read more about his speech here.

Primary Source? "It makes me sneeze."

BlogU at Inside Higher Education has an interesting post on helping students (and professors) define "primary source." The post "FUNQs: Won’t Ask, Won’t Tell" describes the scenarios with students:

First, there is silence and a close examination of fingernails and keypads. Then a brave soul or two will dig deep and recite a version of the memorized definition. But when I ask them to elaborate or provide an example of a primary source in the context of their course, I am apt to hear such assertions as that a primary source is (a) what they are supposed to read first, (b) the most important piece of their research, (c) the item they should list at the top of their bibliography, and (d) the earliest treatment of their topic. My favorite response of all time came from a class smart aleck who announced, “I’m not sure what a primary source is, but I figure it must be one if it makes me sneeze.” Lunacy or profundity, do you think?

Be sure to read the comments, too.

What are you searching for?

Libraries are for everyone!

How Do You Say Google in French?

MakeUseOf.com has several suggestions for helping you learn a second language. One is to use popular Web sites in the language you are learning. So...Amazon or Google in French? Here is what MakeUseof says,

Make a list of the five largest websites you use regularly. I’m willing to bet that Google is in there. EBay is likely to have made the cut. Maybe even Amazon? Basically just jot down your favourite sites and start using them in a foreign language. ...these large websites generally use simple sentences and popular words. Take EBay; it doesn’t have many long rambling paragraphs, rather just plain words and phrases. ...

Using sites such as Google and Yahoo can give you some more basic words as well as seeing some of the French news headlines. This is not an intensive way of learning a language. In fact, it’s fairly passive and doesn’t require too much effort

.

What are 21t Century Skills?

Here is another video that can start discussion on what our students need to know and how we need to prepare them. It was created by Weymouth (MA?) High School Social Studies Department.

It is also a nice demonstration of using screencasting and other tools to create a dynamic video!

Lots to Browse, Lots to Learn

OpenCourseWare Consortium is a comprehensive database of free online courses from colleges like Yale, Stanford, and MIT. You can take courses on just about any topic from literature to music to kitchen science. There are hundreds of courses to explore. Great resource for supplemental materials or to challenge students to see what college courses are like.

World Series

Social media offers a variety of ways to keep up with the World Series. You can follow on Twitter, Facebook, on your iPhone... Cnet News offers a round-up of tools here.

Spanish-Language Browser

This might be worth a look for some students. Flock has introduced a Spanish-language browser in partnership with Univision Interactive Media, the largest Spanish-language media company in the US. You can read ReadWriteWeb's take on it here.

Cell Phones: "Remote Control for Life"

There is a discussion in the Ning about cell phones and other disruptive technology in schools. This study adds some interesting statistics on how ubiquitous and invaluable cell phones have become for many people. Global market research firm Synovate surveyed more than 8,000 cell phone owners across 11 markets to learn more about how people are using these devices. Among the findings:

• Three quarters of respondents never leave home without their phones, and 36 percent of people across the world go as far as to say they ‘cannot live without’ their cell phone.
• 23 percent of respondents own more than two mobile phones. Americans are among the most likely to own at least two at 33 percent, along with the French (34 percent). Brits and Americans were the most likely to own a smartphone at 21 and 20 percent, respectively.
• 17 percent of respondents use e-mail on their mobile on a regular basis, led by 26 percent in the U.S. and 25 percent in the U.K.
• Similarly, 17 percent use Internet browsing, topped by the U.K. at 31 percent and the U.S. at 26 percent.
• 11 percent say they social network regularly via mobile, again led by the U.K. (17 percent) and the U.S. (15 percent).
• 62 percent use the camera regularly, led by 76 percent in the U.K., 71 percent in France and 68 percent in the U.S
• Text messaging has changed the way people manage their relationships. The survey showed that 31 percent of people have lied about their whereabouts via text, one in five has set up a first date and 12 percent have broken up with someone.

View news release ››

YouTube Tools

These two tools let you show just the "good parts" of YouTube videos:

• TubeChop
• Splicd

Word Games

I love word games. My favorite is Babble, a Boggle-like challenge. Here are a few others:

• MustPopWords
• DeepLeep
• WordTwist

I haven't tried any of these, but Dictionary.com just announced the five winners of their Word Play contest.

Know any others I can add to my collection?

Who Are Those People?!

Flickr now allows you to identify the people in your photos, add names to others' photos and more. According to the Flickr Blog:

People in Photos lets you add a member to a photo, find photos of people you know, and manage which photos you’re in.....

You can set your preferences for who can add you to photos and who can add people to photos you’ve shared. You can even determine on a photo-by-photo basis if you’d like to be featured — after all, everyone has a bad hair day now and then. If you do remove yourself from a photo, only you will be able to add yourself back in. If you decide that People in Photos isn’t your thing, you can remove yourself entirely.

History Resources

History Day is coming soon! Here is a list of 100YouTube Channels for History Buffs. I found this on Online College Blog. It often has great lists of useful sites. Worth adding to your RSS reader.

Something Else

I found this on Free Technology for Teachers.

"The Community College System of Colorado has a faculty wiki on which there is a page about Bloom's Taxonomy. The Bloom's Taxonomy page contains two flash tutorials designed to help teachers to plan lessons and create assignments using Bloom's Taxonomy. The first tutorial is a general overview of Bloom's Taxonomy. The second tutorial applies the concepts of Bloom's Taxonomy to current Internet resources like blogs, wikis, and multimedia mash-up tools."

Nice.

Things I Found Today

...via Twitter and reading my Bloglines feeds.

The first one is this short slide presentation :

A Teacher's Guide To Web 2.0 at School

View more documents from Sacha Chua.

I added the author's blog (http://sachachua.com/wp/) to my reader after browsing her posts.

Another discovery is this series of short films from Project Information Literacy, a research project of the iSchool at the University of Washington. There are five in the series and all are worth watching, but I especially liked these:

PIL InfoLitDialog, No. 3: Frustrations


PIL InfoLitDialog, No. 1: Wikipedia


Project Information Literacy is a national study about early adults (college students) and their information-seeking behaviors, competencies, and the challenges they face when conducting research in the digital age. What PIL learns will apply to how K-12 teaches research, too.

History Resources

The Gilderman Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American History. The Institute maintains a website as a portal for American history on the Web; to offer high-quality educational material for teachers, students, historians, and the public; and to provide up-to-date information about the Institute's programs and activities. There is a lot to explore here, including online exhibitions such as Battle Lines: Letters from America's Wars, Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, and The Manhattan Project.

Libraries Change Lives

William Kamkwamba built a windmill in his Malawi village from a picture he found in a library book. (The library was funded by the US Government.) He was interviewed recently by John Stewart on The Daily Show.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
William Kamkwamba
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

William was invited to give a TED talk that you can watch here. His book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind has been published recently.

YouTube Channel

LeAnn mentioned subscribing to YouTube channels as part of your online personal learning network. SMART Technologies, producers of SMART Boards, has started a channel that highlights ways to use the boards in classrooms, offers tips & tricks, and more all in thei YouTube channel. A good resource if you have a SMART Board. Subscribe here http://www.youtube.com/user/SMARTClassrooms#p/a

National Information Literacy Awareness Month

Official notice of the importance of information literacy! President Obama has declared October National Information Literacy Awareness Month. From the press release,

Rather than merely possessing data, we must also learn the skills necessary to acquire, collate, and evaluate information for any situation. This new type of literacy also requires competency with communicationtechnologies, including computers and mobile devices that can help in our day-to-day decisionmaking....Though we may know how to find the information we need, we must also know how to evaluate it.

You can read the entire press release here.

Reliable Web Reference Sites

The American Library Association MARS (Machine-Assisted Reference Section*) has just published the 11th Annual list of best free reference sites. The list recognizes outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web. You can find the list here.

* I have always thought the MARS acronym particularly appropriate--sort of a space agey name--Machine-Assisted Reference.

LMS & Social Media

14 Ways K-12 Librarians Can Teach Social Media by Joyce Valenza is a great article in School Library Journal offering tips to school library media specialists on teaching and integrating social media into the curriculum and instruction. The tips range from copyright/fair use, documentation, Google tools, collaboration, and more. Everyone can find at least one thing, and likely many more, that will make teaching these tools easier.

Shift Happens Video

This wiki gives the background, history, sources, and links to the official versions of the video Shift Happens, including the most recent version Did You Know? 4.0 (September 2009). With so many versions out there, this is a great resource.

It's a Marauder's Map!

I have often thought a Marauder's Map would be quite useful. Just which mall entrance is closest to the Apple Store? Where is room 1145A in the meeting venue? Where is my family at Disneyland? Apparently, others think so too.

A new startup called micello.com just began mapping the inside of buildings like convention centers, malls, college campuses, theme parks, and more. Described as "Google Maps for the indoors," micello is starting to map locations in Silicon Valley, with plans to include other regions. It will be available as an iPhone app within a few weeks. And,

In addition to navigating the maps, aided by the iPhone's GPS to show you where you are, Micello users can also locate their Facebook, Twitter, and iPhone contacts within the map community.

Just like the Marauder's Map! ReadWriteWeb offers more info.

Now all Hogwarts students with an iPhone can have a Marauder's Map, not just Harry.

Teaching with New Media

Edutopia just published a 13-page guide called Ten Top Tips for Teaching with New Media (2009-2010) Past MILI participants will recognize many of the tools and the tips for using them. Here are the tips:

1. Break the Digital Ice
2. Find Your Classroom Experts
3. Get Off to a Good Start
4. Think Globally
5. Find What You Need
6. Make Meaning from Word Clouds
7. Work Better, Together
8. Open a Back Channel
9. Make It Visual
10. Use the Buddy System

You can download the PDF which has more information and resources here. Edutopia is a program of The George Lucas Educational Foundation. You can sign up to receive their newsletter which has ore tips and information on educational technology and other education issues.

If Only They Knew How To...

An academic librarian has compiled a list of what she wishes college freshmen knew about research. Which means, what she wishes they would learn in their K-12 experience. Her original list was created in 1989 and published in Research Strategies: A Journal of Library Concepts and Instruction 6, no. 4 (Fall 1988): 189, but she revises the basic ideas in a blog post at Inside Higher Education Blog U. Among her "great expectations:"

1. Knowledge, information, and opinion: what they are and how they relate...
4. Primary and secondary sources: an understanding of their nature, distinction, variety, and use in all fields...
8. Databases: concept and experience retrieving citations or data; fluency in Boolean logic...
9. What resources, services, policies, and procedures to expect in any library...
10. The importance of accurate citations and a research log.
11. Principles of selecting and evaluating sources:

Some of these are the same things the panel of academic librarians mentioned; others will come up as we work on MILI throughout the year. Nice to know we are all on the right track, at least according to this librarian!

Book Trailers

We all know about movie trailers--those few minute peeks at upcoming attractions. This catch- their-interest technique is the latest way to promote books. Book trailers use multimedia to capture readers' interest with a preview of characters, plot, and action. Publishers, teachers, students, and authors are all making trailers to promote new books or old favorites. This is a way for students to create book reports or to show their fellow students their favorite books. Equipment is minimal, students engage with the book and each other, and the trailers encourage reading for pleasure.

Here are some resources:

• How to make a book trailer
• Bookscreening aggregates a collection of book trailers for all types of books and readers, including more than 100 for youth
• Fiction Notes lists many book trailer resources
• Digital Book Talk is an award-winning site with resources for making book trailers and finished trailers for books of interest to K-12 readers.

Let us know if you try this out. We'd love to see your book trailers.

"Prepare Us for the Future, Not Your Past"

Here is a video to begin the school year and MILI. I Need My Teachers To Learn demonstrates some ways old rules interfere with new teaching and learning.



The video was made by Kevin Honeycutt and his friend Shawn Gormley. Honeycutt works at ESSDACK, a Kansas education services and professional development agency.

"Life Writing"

This article by Clive Thompson from Wired magazine offers an interesting perspective on literacy. Many have bemoaned the lack of writing skills in "today's youth" but the Stanford Study of Writing found that students write more than ever. The study, conducted by Andrea Lundsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, says writing has increased,

"... because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it."

Here's the MILI connection, as stated by Thompson,

"The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing."

That should sound familiar from our discussions of authentic, global audiences that students can reach through blogging, video production, and more. As Thompson points out, good teaching matters. Teachers and media specialists are the guides for students as they create their content in a reliable, responsible manner.

I really like that phrase "life writing."

iPhone in the Classroom

Minneapolis MILI participants may be interested in this summary of research done on a college that implemented iPhone/iTouch use in their classes. The Unofficial Apple Weblog describes the program and talks to the minds behind it at Abilene Christian University.

Play to Win

You can test your knowledge of books and of Google Book features by playing a contest Google announced. It is running a contest for the next ten days ( July 27, 2009 and ends at 11:59:59 P.M. PT on August 5, 2009) on the Google Books site where contestants can win a Sony Reader eBook. You hunt for literature-related trivia using the site's new search inside the book feature. Find the right answers (and offer a 50 word essay on the "reading experience") and you will be entered into a drawing to win a Sony Reader.

Plagiarism Checkers

You know we prefer the "fence to the ambulance" plagiarism-proofing approach to assignments, but we know that sometimes tools can help teachers find those incidents of plagiarism. Make Use Of offers a summary of five plagiarism checker tools in this post.

Finding Information on SlideShare

We have talked about SlideShare as a place to upload and share your slide presentations, but it is also a source of information for you to use in class or for inspiration as you prepare a slide presentation. For example, the White House page includes content about the Road to Recovery, green collar jobs, healthcare reform and much more. You can follow the White House page, too, so you know when it is updated.

Search a keyword to find information on almost any topic. Here are some other informative slide presentations:

• Ways to Use Wordle in Your Classroom
• How Our Kids Are Using the Internet
• Web 2.0 Tools and Their Educational Applications

If you haven't explored SlideShare, take some time to do so the next time you need a slide presentation or inspiration.

Edutopia

Edutopia is a good resource for teachers and media specialists interested in "What Works in Education," as their description says. It is the Web site of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. It has articles, multiple blogs, and much other information. Definitely worth adding to Delicious.

You can subscribe to its free online newsletter or join for a nominal fee and receive access to free webinars and a print magazine. I just joined; I will let you know what I think. In the meantime, here is a blog post that supports several of the MILI concepts on teaching and learning together--Five Ways to Enrich Your Teaching Life by Heather Wolpert-Gowan.

Google Elements

Google Elements is a lesser-known Google feature. Elements lets you embed Google Calendar, Chat, GoogleDocs Presentations, custom search, spreadsheets, GoogleMaps and other Google content into your Web site by just copying and pasting some code. You can easily enhance your teacher/LMS site with student presentations, your class calendar, maps, or other Google content.

The latest Element is News. There are eight general news feeds (Top stories, entertainment, technology, World, US news, and others) or you can create your own using keywords. Like this News Element for Libraries:

Finding Images with Yahoo! Search

Yahoo has introduced new filters in its image search to help find Creative Commons-licensed images, although the term Creative Commons is not used in the filter. Use Yahoo Image Search filters to refine results to show only images that "User allows reuse."  You can limit to Commercial Use or to images licensed for "Remix, tweak, build upon." To find out about Creative Commons, you must click the Learn More link which takes you to the Creative Commons site. 

Google Search Options--Something New

Do a Google search and now in the upper left above your search results there is a link Show Options. Click this link and you are presented with a list of ways to limit or view results. You can see results only for video, forums, or reviews. Select results by timeframe. You can change your list view from Standard to images or more text, which can be helpful as you browse the results. You can click related searches and get a list of other phrases that might help narrow/expand your search.

Two other features are the News Timeline recently introduced by Google and the WonderWheel. The WonderWheel is a satellite-shaped display of related searches.

Take some time to explore these new features. Useful or not?

Paper Mills

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an eye-opening investigative article on paper mills. The article Cheating Goes Global as Essay Mills Multiply attempts to track the physical location of one company called Essay Writers by sleuthing through mail drops, phone records, and business registration from Virginia to Kiev to Manila and back. Fascinating.

Equally fascinating are the interviews with professors and students. Students claiming they only use the papers as research and professors expressing surprise and disbelief that such papers would be requested by their students. And one professor suggesting assignments be "plagiarism proof."

Recommended reading.

Are Librarians Obsolete?

I know you know the answer to that! No! Physical libraries and their staff are vital components to teaching and learning. And while I am a true believer in all things library, I am not sure I could articulate as many reasons as does this article from DegreeTutor Are Librarians Totally Obsolete? 33 Reasons Librarians are Still Needed.

Media specialists and teachers can use many of these reasons (see #5 and all of the reasons that mention the Internet) to bolster their case for school library media programs that provide strong instruction and collaboration.

The World Digital Library

The World Digital Library is a compendium of some 1,200 high-resolution digitized files that allows users to zoom in on ancient documents and archival photographs. The Library has a sophisticated search tool that allows users to browse by keywords, time period, place, type of item and the institution which contributed it. Descriptions of all materials are in seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish), though the documents, books and other components appear in their original languages. The World Digital Library is another resource for students with its mix of primary sources.

The World Digital Library:

....will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and to contribute to scholarly research.

US institutions include the National Archives and Records Administration and the Library of Congress. Other WDL project partners include cultural institutions from Brazil, China, Egypt, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia and many other countries.

Fair Use and the Courts

This is an interesting article from Ars Technica addressing plagiarism, copyright, and fair use. It reports on the results of a court case in which students sued TurnItIn on the grounds that it violated the students' copyright by storing their papers online. The students lost because according to a federal court decision:

TurnItIn's use was "fair" according to the four factors found in US copyright law, with most weight being given to the "transformative" nature of what TurnItIn was doing with the papers.

Plaintiffs argued that [TurnItIn parent company] iParadigms’ use of their works cannot be transformative because the archiving process does not add anything to the work. TurnItIn merely stores the work unaltered and in its entirety. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals felt that argument "was misguided." Their conclusion:

The use of a copyrighted work need not alter or augment the work to be transformative in nature... iParadigms' use of plaintiffs’ works had an entirely different function and purpose than the original works; the fact that there was no substantive alteration to the works does not preclude the use from being transformative in nature.

So, an interesting interpretation of fair use. The article describes the court decision as a "primer on fair use," providing another copyright resource.

"Doing Honest Work"

Cleaning off my desk this morning I found the January/February issue of Knowledge Quest, the Journal of the American Association of School Librarians. The entire issue focuses on academic honesty and teaching ethical practices. Right up MILI's alley! Articles include:

• It's Not as Simple as It seems: Doing Honest Academic Work in an Age of Point and Click
• Teaming To Teach Ethics
• Ethics from Web 1.0 to Web2.0
• Implementing GoodWork Programs: Helping Students Become Ethical Workers and More

Unfortunately, Knowledge Quest in not available online through ELM, so ask your media specialist if he/she has a copy. Otherwise, you can request articles through Minitex MEDD. This is Voume 37, No. 3. Or, if I can figure out the online access for members of ALA/AASL, I will see what is online.

All Sides to the Debate

ProCon.org is a an independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity. It provides pros and cons on diverse controversial topics with facts and quotations from thousands of experts. The sites are free and contain no advertising. Its mission:

Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan primarily pro-con format. 

The site currently has 20 topics including Big Three Auto, Sexual Orientation, the Death Penalty, Drinking Milk, and more on business, politics, health, science, sports, and more. 

MnKnows: Dig Deeper @ Your Library

MnKnows is a shiny new portal for all of the statewide services offered to Minnesotans through Minitex and their local libraries. From one nice, crisp page, users can go to the MnLink Gateway to find materials not available locally, find databases at ELM4You, search the Reflections Collection of the Minnesota Digital Library, use the Research Project Calculator, and click into AskMn--The Librarian Is In. There is even a link to find your local library. A very handy stop on the research path.

If you haven't promoted AskMn--The Librarian Is In to your students, do so. This is a 24/7 live reference service. Librarians are standing by to answer questions on any topic or to provide research help to college students. AskMn is brought to you by Minitex and participating public and academic libraries. Questions asked during library hours are answered by these Minnesota libraries; after hours questions are answered by librarians that are awake elsewhere. You need a Minnesota public library card to access AskMn.

A Google search on MnKnows returns this, "Did you mean minnows?" 

YouTube EDU

YouTube has launched YouTube EDU, a page that puts all the videos from colleges and universities in one spot. You can now find campus tours, free lectures, research, and other college info all in one place. You can limit your search to the EDU part of YouTube, too. Here is the University of Minnesota page that has 95 videos on topics ranging from HIV prevention to the new stadium.  

US Government Gets Social

US Government agencies can now officially use YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, and blip.tv to interact and communicate with citizens. After nine months of negotiations with these popular social network sites, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced that the government has signed agreements with these companies that will allow federal agencies to officially post content to these sites. The new agreements resolve legal concerns associated with many standard terms and conditions that pose problems for agencies, such as liability limits, endorsements and freedom of information, GSA officials said. The GSA is negotiating with MySpace and Facebook, too. GSA has already determined that Twitters Terms of Service is in line with federal requirements. Why is the federal government on YouTube?

"We need to get official information out to sites where people are already visiting and encourage them to interact with their government," said GSA Acting Administrator Paul Prouty. “The new agreements make it easier for the government to provide official information to citizens via their method of choice.”

You can read the details at articles in NextGov and Federal Computer Week, including why the GSA determined the need for the special agreements.

Google & Privacy

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has asked the Federal Trade Commission to: 

... pull the plug on Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and the company's other Web apps until government-approved "safeguards are verifiably established."

More details on Cnet News here. Tempest in a teapot or something to worry about?

Little Twitterers

Second graders in Maine are Twittering to connect to others. This video (starts with an ad) shows how they use it in class. I think it is safe to say that none of us said, "At first, I thought it was just another instant messaging blog," when we were in second grade! Interesting comments from teacher and students.

The wonders of the Internet. I found this via the blog Ideas and Thoughts which linked to a video on Orlandoclicks, an Orlando FL TV station Web site (not that that is easy to tell, either). Looking for comments on the video, I used the TV call letters embedded in the video and ended up at WLBZ, a Bangor ME station. There I found the transcript of the story and the actual TV broadcast, with the anchors' comments before and after. Alas, no reader/viewer comments as of yet. I would like to see what "average" people think. What do you think? Does Twitter have a place in Grade 2--or any other grade?

Top Ten Tips

This blog Professors' Guide at US News and World Report is aimed at college students, but there is much that is useful for high school students, too. The most recent entry is The Top 10 Tips to Get the Most Out of the Library. There are lots of tips we hope you are sharing with your students--WorldCat (and MnLink in Minnesota), the databases, virtual reference, interlibrary loan, and more. Tip #10? Ask for help...get to know your librarian. Just what we've been saying.

Why There Will Always Be Books

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/9/

Fair Use Discussions Continue

This New York Times article Copyright Challenge for Sites That Excerpt discusses the issues around the bloggers' practice of quoting content from other sources. This has usually been considered fair use under current copyright law,

But some media executives are growing concerned that the increasingly popular curators of the Web that are taking large pieces of the original work — a practice sometimes called scraping — are shaving away potential readers and profiting from the content.

While some of the discussion is focused on loss of revenue, there are interesting points and speculation about the future of fair use, blogging, and copyright. In an information world without physical boundaries, the easy ability to copy and paste, and the difficulty of tracking your words online*, these issues will only continue.

*New services like this one called FairShare are popping up to help content creators better track their work online. (via ReadWriteWeb)

World Resources, Worldwide Access

Certainly one of the most remarkable and useful results of digitization and the Internet is the access we now have to amazing resources from around the world. ALA Direct, an email newsletter sent to members of the American Library Association, points out this resource:

The European Library offers free access to the resources of the 48 national libraries of Europe in 20 languages. Currently, the European Library gives access to 150 million items across Europe. The amount of referenced digital collections is constantly increasing. The library provides a vast virtual collection of material from all disciplines and offers visitors simple access to European cultural resources. The European Library is a noncommercial organization available to anyone around the world seeking books, maps, photographs, music, videos, and other materials. Participating institutions are all members of the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), a foundation aiming at increasing and reinforcing the role of national libraries in Europe.

The library became available in November, but massive interest--to the tune of 10 million hits an hour--caused it to crash on its first day of operation. It re-opened a month later with quadrupled server capacity. It seems people really want access to all types of libraries and their vast resources.

Backchannel Hints

It has been interesting to read the blog posts about using the backchannel in classrooms. Here is an article How To Present While People Are Twittering with some insights and ideas on the backchannel. The article is from Pistachio, a consulting firm focused on "microsharing." You can read more here. Pistachio focuses on business, but there is much of interest to educators and librarians on their site and blog.

Deep Web

This NYT article discusses the work being done so search engines can search the Deep Web--resources that are not readily available including library catalogs, license information, and similar databases.

I Am...

I took the Book Quiz that Information Woman! pointed out.

You're To Kill a Mockingbird!

by Harper Lee

Perceived as a revolutionary and groundbreaking person, you have
changed the minds of many people. While questioning the authority around you, you've
also taken a significant amount of flack. But you've had the admirable guts to
persevere. There's a weird guy in the neighborhood using dubious means to protect you,
but you're pretty sure it's worth it in the end. In the end, it remains unclear to you
whether finches and mockingbirds get along in real life.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Language Learning

Here is a recent site for learning languages. busuu.com lets learners:

• Connect with native speakers and learn directly from other members of the busuu.com community
• Be completely flexible and learn only what you really need
• Have fun by experiencing a new way of learning languages and forget those boring grammar books

You can add it to this list from ReadWriteWeb of 20+ Ways to Learn a Language.

Update: But wait, there's more--Jane's E-learning Pick of the Day just published this list of 100+ language learning sites.

The Backchannel in Church

Amy from the Chaska MILI group blogs at One Foot in Front of the Other... Shes has a great post about the backchannel and using TodaysMeet in her German class (complete with German versions of "text speech"). Even more interesting is the discussion she had with her fellow congregants about the backchannel at church. The post is here.

It is a great example of what we were discussing--the prevalence of backchannel, how it is related to the presenter's content, and more. If her minister does set up Twitter or another backchannel in church, that will really take things to a different level! Hope she keeps us posted.

More About Facebook

Update 2: Facebook has backed off the change in Terms of Service and returned to the previous version. This is a result of user feedback.
Facebook has started a group called Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities formed specifically to allow people "to give input and suggestions on Facebook's Terms of Use."

The Consumerist pointed out that Facebook has changed its Terms of Service for user-generated content. See discussion of the post/issue in this Mashable article and also at Webware. The change makes it clear that Facebook owns the content, even after you leave Facebook. It does go on to explain the whys of this decision.
Update 1: The New York Times and its readers have weighed in on the issue.

You've probably seen the Facebook 25 Random Things About Me craze and maybe even done it. It has been covered everywhere, it seems. What do you think--too much information, fun, entertaining...?

The Importance of Media Specialists

The latest article in the NYT series The Future of Reading,  In Web Age, Library Job Gets Update, recognizes the value and role of school library media specialists in teaching students how to do research, evaluate information, and present their results. Calling the media specialist "The Digital Librarian," it describes one media specialist:

Ms. Rosalia, 54, is part of a growing cadre of 21st-century multimedia specialists who help guide students through the digital ocean of information that confronts them on a daily basis. These new librarians believe that literacy includes, but also exceeds, books...

Soon Ms. Rosalia progressed to teaching students how to ask more sophisticated questions during research projects, how to decode Internet addresses and how to assess the authors and biases of a Web site’s content.

Now for the bad news,

Yet as school librarians increasingly teach students crucial skills needed not only in school, but also on the job and in daily life, they are often the first casualties of school budget crunches.

Certainly both of these statements are true in Minnesota--media specialists are teaching these vital skills to students and teachers and are among the first programs/staff that are cut to trim budgets. A recent KSTP-TV Investigative Report highlighted both of these issues. 

There is much research, including two Minnesota studies done by Metronet in 2002 and 2004, that shows that a professionally-staffed, well-stocked school library media program impacts student achievement. This research needs to be shared with school administrators at all levels.

Facebook for Parents

To help kids reach their full potential, parents today must know about Facebook. That’s the purpose of this website.

So begins the introduction to this potentially useful resource to share with parents. Facebook for Parents is a four session course offered at Stanford University designed for parents of Facebook users under 18. There is an optional hands-on lab prior to class that includes coaching of participants by Stanford students. Parents--or teachers--can sign up for an e-newsletter published three times a year. It will include updates about Facebook and explain the skills kids learn on Facebook. The Web site will eventually include the class materials.

So, we can't go to Stanford for the class. Can your district develop and offer a similar class?

Here are some Facebook privacy hints for anyone on Facebook from the AllFacebook blog.

What is a cool tool?

This is a cool tool for creating Jeopardy quizzes. The template is ready to go--you add the content. It is free and no registration is required. Just go to Jeopardy Labs and build a game.

Fair Use?

AP claims copyright infringement--and wants credit & compensation--of the photo Shepard Fairey used in his iconic Obama poster. What do you think--fair use?

Update:

Diane Wallace-Reid from Minneapolis shared this link to an NPR story on the issue.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100301384&sc=emaf

GMail Stickers

Act fast for some free GMail stickers from Google. From the Official Google Mail Blog:

There's the standard Gmail m-velope -- dressed up in glitter. One of three bookplate style stickers you can stick on anything from the inside of a favorite book to your laptop or your skateboard. (Trading with friends is encouraged -- we realize the unicorn isn't for everyone.) And there's a sheet of keyboard shortcut stickers intended as a tool to help people learn Gmail's shortcuts. The adhesive is a bit more removable than standard stickiness, so you can take them off once you've trained your fingers.

Details here. Your self-addressed stamped envelop needs to be postmarked by February 14, 2009.

Resource for Readers

The Children's Series Binder wiki

seeks to create a comprehensive listing of series books for children to help librarians, teachers, parents, and kids find the chronological and publication order of series books.

Children's Series Binder is organized by series title and genre, and the entire wiki is searchable by keyword. Series titles are listed in alphabetical order in the Table of Contents. You can also browse the Category Link List, which is a list of all the genres, authors, and categories of books in the Children's Series Binder. This could be a useful link from a library media center page.

Everyone is welcome as a contributor; email the wiki owner for user ID and password. seriesbinder@gmail.com

rant/This is an aside, but ... The Series Binder is created by the Webster Public Library Children's staff. Where is Webster, you ask? Well, it took me five clicks deeper and deeper into the site and it could have been more if I hadn't gotten lucky to find it is Webster NY. I think every Web site should have at least its city and state on the front page.

Even if you assume only your neighbors and other locals are using your library/school/business/institution/other Web site, it is vital to put your location on the front page! How else will they know that this is the Webster Public Library they are looking for? It's the World Wide Web, after all--people find your site from all over the Web and world. I can't tell you the number of times I have looked at a newspaper or TV Web site and it is identified only as the Springfield Gazette or KSRE with no other identification. I can name a half a dozen Springfields without trying very hard. So, when students or you are putting content on the Web, tell us where you are. Make it a best practice. /end of rant