posted Nov 11, 2008 12:45 PM by Jim Randolph
THIS should clear things up a bit. Get the goods over at the NCTE Inbox Blog. They have the just-released document as an HTML link or a pdf download. This will be essential reading for upcoming Media Specialists and probably referenced in the upcoming copyright class Mary Ann mentioned. It also has some great links for media literacy, Creative Commons, workshops, curriculum, and other resources. Great stuff!
How great? Check out these questions from the post:
Can I play “The Telltale Head” episode of The Simpsonsin class as part of my unit on Poe?Is it okay to include a clip from The News Hour with Jim Lehrer in my ReadWriteThink lesson plan?I want to show a screen capture from a video game in my conference presentation. Is that okay?Can a student use the chorus from Dire Straits’ "Romeo and Juliet" in a PowerPoint presentation on the play?The class made a video adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book. Can we post it online?
The answers are yes, yes, yes, yes and yes! |
posted Oct 16, 2008 4:54 PM by Beth Thornton
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updated Oct 18, 2008 5:57 AM by Jim Randolph
]
I wanted to tell you guys about a GLA preconference I went to.
Called "Taking on technology." It was aimed mostly at SLMS, but there
were a few of us academic librarians there and a handful of public
librarians. They talked about a bunch of stuff (actually it was
like 6320 lite)....but I got really excited when they started talking
about technology planning. One of the presenters works for a
grant-funded (Gates foundation) project called TechAtlas for Libraries.
It's a set of online tools (free) that allows libraries to create
technology plans. It's got all sorts of things on there--how to create
a mission and vision statement. Also, how to do a survey. But to use
theirs....you can't change the questions. Here's the URL:
http://webjunction.techatlas.org/tools/A few things the presenter said about tech planning: 1. Use the team approach (delegate, involve, and evolve) 2. Make mission driven decisions 3. Conduct a needs assessment (which I guess we'll get to practice with our surveys next week) 4. Write SMART goals for a wide audience. SMART=specific, measureable, attainable, relevant, time bound 5. Gain buy-in 6. Evaluate progress, and successes/challenges |
posted Oct 16, 2008 9:27 AM by Jim Randolph
"Remember a few weeks ago we voiced the concerns about signing students up for Web 2.0 stuff & that they might not have an email account? Read the post on this blog."
--Jennifer Gillespie |
posted Oct 11, 2008 10:12 AM by Jim Randolph
posted Oct 2, 2008 9:07 AM by Jim Randolph
Someone on the 6320 discussion boards asked about an online to-do list. There are a million. An incredibly popular productivity site, Lifehacker, asked the same question of their technologically savvy readership and here is what they came up with. Personally, I use Google Calendar for appointments and such, but pen and paper (mostly index cards) for my lists. If I ever did decide to go all digital, I think I'd go with Remember the Milk since it synchs with Gcal.
Also: if you click on the title of any of these "Tech Tips" there is a space for comments. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions or tech tip needs in the comments section. |
posted Sep 30, 2008 1:47 PM by Jim Randolph
I know I already mentioned the wonderfulness that is BibMe the bibliography creator. I wanted to bring it up again because some of you have been asking, on the 6320 discussion boards, how to reference web pages and blogs in APA format. BibMe to the rescue. It has tabs for books, magazines, newspapers, websites, journals, even films. So yes, use the OWL site Greg mentioned because Bibme won't help you with your in-line formatting, but for a handy tool that formats and stores all of your references I don't think it can be beat. My only quibble is that every time I load it up, it defaults to MLA and I have to switch it to APA each time. I'm hoping they'll fix that but it's a minor detail. |
posted Sep 25, 2008 9:02 AM by Jim Randolph
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updated Sep 26, 2008 12:21 PM
]
Mary Ann mentioned the wonderfulness that is TED Talks at our last meeting. T.E.D. stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. They have amazing speakers from every place and every idea you can think of. Educators, writers, musicians, everything. And better yet you can add them to your Feed Reader and keep up with the videos as they release them. They can also be downloaded onto your computer or mp3 player. I always keep a few on my iPod to watch in waiting rooms and such. My little girl's favorite is this one. It freaks me out every time I see it. Amazing stuff. (And if you haven't set up a feed reader yet, here's an incredibly simple one to try.) |
posted Sep 25, 2008 5:51 AM by Jim Randolph
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updated Sep 26, 2008 12:22 PM
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posted Sep 22, 2008 12:00 PM by Jim Randolph
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updated Sep 24, 2008 4:33 PM
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I got this from somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Probably Lifehacker or 43folders.com but I don't know if I bookmarked it. If I find the link I'll add it. Anyway, here's the deal. Instead of having different passwords for every site you go to and risking forgetting them--or even worse, using the same password over and over for everything so that if one of them gets hacked they're all vulnerable--you need to use this handy dandy password algorithm.
Make up a short five or six character password. It helps if it's completely ramdom. Let's use the example nfV640. That's a decent one because it's not my initials and there's one capital letter and the numbers mean nothing specific to me. Now all you need to do is to memorize and embed that six character string into every password. Then just use the first two letters and the last two letters of every website to finish off your password, placing the first two letters in the beginning and the last two letters at the end.
So you password for Amazon would be amnfV640on. For ebay it would be ebnfV640ay. For Pay Pal it would be panfV640al.
Make sense? It's the same basic password and easily remembered because you just think of the embedded six character string (which you've memorized) and then think of the site you're on and if you're Shannon it'll be ESPN so when he sees the "Sign In" prompt he'd type esnfV640pn and be checking football scores in no time.
A corrollary to this is to not give real answers to those password prompt questions. Just give the same basic answer every time with variations based on the information asked. So if it's "What is your mother's maiden name?" you could set up the answer "Dumbquestion Maidenname." If they ask you your favorite color your answer would be "Dumbquestion Favoritecolor." Some kind of pattern that YOU will remember and nobody could get from say, your Facebook page or by doing a Google search on you.
Any other ideas? Add them in the comments.
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posted Sep 21, 2008 1:00 PM by Jim Randolph
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