Online Community for teen books and authors.
Visit our different channels to find communities of teens who like the same genres as you, or join in a forum discussion to share your opinions and insights. Discover a great new book? Don't forget to "Chuck It" at your friends for them to check out too!
With the new year underway and the 2014 Public Library Association conference in Indianapolis approaching, we asked some experts working in children's and teen services what trends they are seeing. What are the big issues children and teen librarians will be discussing at PLA?
The curriculum is designed to be interactive, discussion filled and allow students to learn through hands-on and scenario activities. On this site you'll find a resource booklet for both educators and students that can be downloaded in PDF form, presentations to accompany the lesson and animated videos to help frame the conversation
second technological shift when the codex replaced the scroll sometime soon after the beginning of the Christian era. By the third century AD, the codex—that is, books with pages that you turn as opposed to scrolls that you roll
eventually included differentiated words (that is, words separated by spaces
other reader's aids
codex, in turn, was transformed by the invention of printing with movable type in the 1450s.
technology of printing did not change for nearly four centuries, but the reading public grew larger and larger, thanks to improvements in literacy, education, and access to the printed word.
fourth great change, electronic communication
movable type to the Internet, 524 years;
writing to the codex, 4,300 years;
codex to movable type, 1,150 years;
would argue that the new information technology should force us to rethink the notion of information itself.
Internet to search engines, nineteen years
search engines to Google's algorithmic relevance ranking, seven years;
continued at such a rate as to seem both unstoppable and incomprehensible.
continuity I have in mind has to do with the nature of information itself or, to put it differently, the inherent instability of texts.
every age was an age of information, each in its own way, and that information has always been unstable.
news has always been an artifact and that it never corresponded exactly to what actually happened.
News is not what happened but a story about what happened.
aving learned to write news, I now distrust newspapers as a source of information, and I am often surprised by historians who take them as primary sources for knowing what really happened
newspapers should be read for information about how contemporaries construed events, rather than for reliable knowledge of events
We live in a time of unprecedented accessibility to information that is increasingly unreliable. Or do we?
as messages that are constantly being reshaped in the process of transmission
Instead of firmly fixed documents, we must deal with multiple, mutable texts. By studying them skeptically on our computer screens, we can learn how to read our daily newspaper more effectively—and even how to appreciate old books.
Unbelievers used to dismiss Henry Clay Folger's determination to accumulate copies of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare as the mania of a crank.
When Folger's collection grew beyond three dozen copies, his friends scoffed at him as Forty Folio Folger.
eighteen of the thirty-six plays in the First Folio had never before been printed
only two were reprinted without change from earlier quarto editions
extual stability never existed in the pre-Internet eras.
Piracy was so pervasive in early modern Europe that best-sellers could not be blockbusters as they are today
They abridged, expanded, and reworked texts as they pleased, without worrying about the authors' intentions.
question in perspective by discussing two views of the library, which I would describe as grand illusions—grand and partly true.
o put it positively, there is something to be said for both visions, the library as a citadel and the Internet as open space.
We have come to the problems posed by Google Book Search.
Google proposal seemed to offer a way to make all book learning available to all people, or at least those privileged enough to have access to the World Wide Web
will open up possibilities for research involving vast quantities of data, which could never be mastered without digitization
Electronic Enlightenment, a project sponsored by the Voltaire Foundation of Oxford
scholars will be able to trace references to individuals, books, and ideas throughout the entire network of correspondence that undergirded the Enlightenment
notably American Memory sponsored by the Library of Congress[1] and the Valley of the Shadow created at the University of Virginia[2] —have demonstrated the feasibility and usefulness of databases on this scale
will make research libraries obsolete
2. Although Google pursued an intelligent strategy by signing up five great libraries, their combined holdings will not come close to exhausting the stock of books in the United States.
1. According to the most utopian claim of the Googlers, Google can put virtually all printed books on-line.
If Google missed this book, and other books like it, the researcher who relied on Google would never be able to locate certain works of great importance.
On the contrary, Google will make them more important than ever. To support this view, I would like to organize my argument around eight points.
For books under copyright, however, Google will probably display only a few lines at a time, which it claims is legal under fair use.
3. Although it is to be hoped that the publishers, authors, and Google will settle their dispute, it is difficult to see how copyright will cease to pose a problem.
But nothing suggests that it will take account of the standards prescribed by bibliographers, such as the first edition to appear in print or the edition that corresponds most closely to the expressed intention of the author.
Google defines its mission as the communication of information—right now, today; it does not commit itself to conserving texts indefinitely.
it has not yet ventured into special collections, where the rarest works are to be found. And of course the totality of world literature—all the books in all the languages of the world—lies far beyond Google's capacity to digitize
Electronic enterprises come and go. Research libraries last for centuries. Better to fortify them than to declare them obsolete
5. Google will make mistakes.
Once we believed that microfilm would solve the problem of preserving texts. Now we know better.
6. As in the case of microfilm, there is no guarantee that Google's copies will last.
all texts "born digital" belong to an endangered species
7. Google plans to digitize many versions of each book, taking whatever it gets as the copies appear, assembly-line fashion, from the shelves; but will it make all of them available?
4. Companies decline rapidly in the fast-changing environment of electronic technology.
No single copy of an eighteenth-century best-seller will do justice to the endless variety of editions. Serious scholars will have to study and compare many editions, in the original versions, not in the digitized reproductions that Google will sort out according to criteria that probably will have nothing to do with bibliographical scholarship.
8. Even if the digitized image on the computer screen is accurate, it will fail to capture crucial aspects of a book.
ts physical aspects provide clues about its existence as an element in a social and economic system; and if it contains margin notes, it can reveal a great deal about its place in the intellectual life of its readers.
Rare book rooms are a vital part of research libraries, the part that is most inaccessible to Google. But libraries also provide places for ordinary readers to immerse themselves in books,
Meanwhile, I say: shore up the library.
I also say: long live Google, but don't count on it living long enough to replace that venerable building with the Corinthian columns.
he research library still deserves to stand at the center of the campus, preserving the past and accumulating energy for the future.
interface that would allow students to build a virtual collection of their favorite books by letting them copy a record to display on their “bookshelf.
use blogs and podcasts to facilitate book discussions and booktalks.
You can further stimulate a dialogue by establishing a “Book Talk” program through voicemail.
For users, Web2.0 was all about reorganizing web-based practices around Friends
typically labeled social networkING sites were never really about networking for most users. They were about socializing inside of pre-existing networks.
ACT ONE : NETWORK EFFECTS
Friendster was designed as to be an online dating site.
MySpace aimed to attract all of those being ejected from Friendster
Facebook had launched as a Harvard-only site before expanding to other elite institutions
And only in 2006, did they open to all.
in the 2006-2007 school year, a split amongst American teens occurred
college-bound kids from wealthier or upwardly mobile backgrounds flocked to Facebook
urban or less economically privileged backgrounds rejected the transition and opted to stay with MySpace
At this stage, over 35% of American adults have a profile on a social network site
the single most important factor in determining whether or not a person will adopt one of these sites is whether or not it is the place where their friends hangout.
do you know anything about the cluster dynamics of the users
all fine and well if everyone can get access to the same platform, but when that's not the case, new problems emerge.
ACT TWO : YOUTH VS. ADULTS
showcases the ways in which some tools are used differently by different groups.
For American teenagers, social network sites became a social hangout space, not unlike the malls
Adults, far more than teens, are using Facebook for its intended purpose as a social utility. For example, it is a tool for communicating with the past.
dynamic more visible than in the recent "25 Things" phenomena.
Adults are crafting them to show-off to people from the past and connect the dots between different audiences as a way of coping with the awkwardness of collapsed contexts.
Twitter is all the rage, but are kids using it? For the most part, no.
many are leveraging Twitter to be part of a broad dialogue
We design social media for an intended audience but aren't always prepared for network effects or the different use cases that emerge when people decide to repurpose their technology.
One of the key challenges is learning how to adapt to an environment in which these properties and dynamics play a key role. This is a systems problem.
you are probably even aware of how inaccurate the public portrait of risk is
ACT THREE : RESHAPING PUBLICS
I want to discuss five properties of social media and three dynamics. These are the crux of what makes the phenomena we're seeing so different from unmediated phenomena.
1. Persistence.
The bits-wise nature of social media means that a great deal of content produced through social media is persistent by default.
You can copy and paste a conversation from one medium to another, adding to the persistent nature of it
2. Replicability.
much easier to alter what's been said than to confirm that it's an accurate portrayal of the original conversation.
3. Searchability.
Search changes the landscape, making information available at our fingertips
4. Scalability.
Conversations that were intended for just a friend or two might spiral out of control and scale to the entire school
5. (de)locatability.
This paradox means that we are simultaneously more and less connected to physical space.
Those five properties are intertwined, but their implications have to do with the ways in which they alter social dynamics.
1. Invisible Audiences.
lurkers who are present at the moment
visitors who access our content at a later date or in a different environment
having to present ourselves and communicate without fully understanding the potential or actual audience
2. Collapsed Contexts
Social media brings all of these contexts crashing into one another and it's often difficult to figure out what's appropriate, let alone what can be understood.
3. Blurring of Public and Private
As we are already starting to see, this creates all new questions about context and privacy, about our relationship to space and to the people around us.
The key lesson from the rise of social media for you is that a great deal of software is best built as a coordinated dance between you and the users.
Important summary of how social media works for youth and adults, and how five properties and three dynamics have a systematic affect that we all must deal with.
A series of studies that have had a great deal of influence on the research and decision-making discussions concerning school library media programs have grown from the work of a team in Colorado—Keith Curry Lance, Marcia J. Rodney, and Christine Hamilton-Pennell (2000).
Recent school library impact studies have also identified, and generated some evidence about, potential "interventions" that could be studied. The questions might at first appear rather familiar: How much, and how, are achievement and learning improved when . . .
librarians collaborate more fully with other educators?
libraries are more flexibly scheduled?
administrators choose to support stronger library programs (in a specific way)?
library spending (for something specific) increases?
high priority should be given to reaching teachers, administrators, and public officials as well as school librarians and school library advocates.
Perhaps the most strategic option, albeit a long-term one, is to infiltrate schools and colleges of education. Most school administrators and teachers never had to take a course, or even part of a course, that introduced them to what constitutes a high-quality school library program.
Three factors are working against successful advocacy for school libraries: (1) the age demographic of librarians, (2) the lack of institutionalization of librarianship in K–12 schools, and (3) the lack of support from educators due to their lack of education or training about libraries and good experiences with libraries and librarians.
These vacant positions are highly vulnerable to being downgraded or eliminated in these times of tight budgets, not merely because there is less money to go around, but because superintendents, principals, teachers, and other education decision-makers do not understand the role a school librarian can and should play.
If we want the school library to be regarded as a central player in fostering academic success, we must do whatever we can to ensure that school library research is not marginalized by other interests.
A great overview of Lance's research into the effectiveness of libraries. He answers the question: Do school libraries or librarians make a difference? His answer (A HUGE YES!) is back by 14 years of remarkable research. The point is proved. But this information remains unknown to many principals and superintendents.
Anyone interested in 21st century teaching and learning will find this interview fascinating.
The Learning Registry project is an informal collaboration among several federal agencies that share the same goal: making federal learning resources and primary source materials easier to find, access and integrate into educational environments.
The five alert services (all free) discussed are: 1. Track New Book 2. Book Buzzes 3. Any New Books 4. Author Alerts 5. Wowbrary A service many of you are probably familiar with. Wowbrary alerts users to new books at numerous public libraries around the U.S.
Weddings are all about showing each other that you are in love and committed towards one another. It is an event that should be fun because it only happens once in a lifetime. Couples who are happy...
Homeschooling can be a good way for your children to learn, but if they don't have a good teacher, then your homeschooling efforts will be worthless. A good teacher is one of the most important asp...
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Kids in public schools face many hurdles today, the bulk of which we never had to deal with when we were young. The best way to help your kids avoid these pitfalls is to homeschool them, and the he...
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Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
Get help for Strayer-University ACC 599 Week 5 Midterm. We provide assignment, homework, discussions and case studies help for all subjects Strayer-University for Session 2017-2018. ACC 599 WEEK 5...
just released its standards-aligned Here in Chicago, AASL's Best Websites for Teaching & Learning Committee 2013 list. Sites, apps, and tools are selected because they engage users through innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. Honored websites, tools, and resources will provide exceptional value to inquiry-based teaching and learning.
http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines/best-websites/2013#media
In the category of Media Sharing,among the selections in AASL's Best Websites for Teaching and Learning are:
Pinterest http://pinterest.com/
Create connections, encourage collaboration, ignite discussions, or simply share mutual interests through Pinterest. Uploaded or "pin" images and videos from websites, blogs, or your own computer, smartphone, or tablet to create boards. These boards can be private or public, and others can be invited to pin on any of your boards. Any "pin" can be "repinned", and all pins will link back to their source. Grades 6-12.
smore https://www.smore.com/
Flyers and newsletters become a snap with Smore! Design and create professional online flyers by choosing from an array of templates, styles, and colors to compliment your individual style and audience. With Smore you can embed links, audio, video, pictures, and text into your flyers and newsletters and then publish instantly to get your message and information out quickly. Grades 6-12.
Here is a Pinterest board of Library Smores: http://pinterest.com/cshinn4/library-smores/