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.