Living on a Glass Microscope Slide

Last night my husband was on his fantasy baseball site and questioned me, "So...does someone outside of my baseball league know what I'm doing right now?" He's been hearing me talk about privacy issues for the past few weeks. His naive perspective about privacy is scary. How "private" is my life? I'd say, "...not very."

Today's Patriot News editorial, "Everybody's Watching-Electronically" by Thomas Friedman addresses this issue of privacy. He claims that we don't live in glass houses in which the world knows our business; we are on glass microscope slides. The article quotes Dov Seidman, founder and CEO of LRN, a business ethics company.

In this transparent world "how" you live your life and "how" you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it on their own without any editor[blogs, wikis, cell phone cameras] ...For young people, this means understanding that your reputation in life is going to get set in stone much earlier. More of what you say, do or write will end up as a digital fingerprint that never gets erased.

Stuck on You

I like the idea of Zoomclouds, but I'm not as thrilled with it as I originally was. I'm not sure why it doesn't use my actual tags from del.icio.us and Connotea. It just pulls words (regardless of significance) from the articles that I bookmarked.

I do, however, really like SuprGlu as a feed aggregator. I am able to keep track of my Fireflies blog, my bookmarks on del.icio.us and Connotea. SuprGlu creates a SuprCloud, but it's still not nearly complete. I'm still looking for a better way to manage my information.

SuprGlu doesn't offer a lot of design templates that Blogger offers, but I'm stuck on it for now.

Firefly on SuprGlu

Battlefield of Information or Conversation Around the Fireplace?

The debate about Wikipedia continues. I am really wondering about how to use this tool effectively with students while making sure that they understand the implications of using this resource for research.

Interview with Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) on Comedy Central

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version)

At our school we have a group of teachers who are going through professional development training about how to integrate technology into the classroom. When the other librarians and I present, I am going to suggest that we show this video as an example of some of the digital resources available to make teaching and learning authentic in the 21st century.

Librarian - Villian or Hero?

From LIS2000 - Blackboard Announcements

Wed, Jun 20, 2007

While at work today I was reading "The Film Preservation Guide - The Basics for Archives, Libraries and Museums" by the National Film Preservation Foundation. There was a section that pertains to the conversation in last night's chat dealing with the librarian that was given a hard time by a teacher about showing a movie in class. I've included part of the section below:

8.8 Protecting Your Institution

" ... Copyright liability applies whether or not an individual or organization knows that an action constitutes infringement. Simply making an illegal copy or publicly screening a film once without permission can leave your institution vulnerable to civil fines."

The best approach is to work with your organization's counsel to develop policies for licensing agreements, public screenings, Internet use, and other film usages, and to educate staff on how to implement them.

Maybe this will help the librarian defend her actions.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Koha Virtual Bookshelf

I created a virtual bookshelf using Koha for poetry books written by or selected by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Koha Virtual Bookshelf

Salting the ocean :
The space between our footsteps :
The tree is older than you are :
What have you lost? /
19 varieties of gazelle :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
Baby Radar /	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
Come with me :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
Different ways to pray :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
The flag of childhood :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
Fuel :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
Hugging the jukebox /	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
I feel a little jumpy around you :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
A maze me :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
Red suitcase :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
Words under the words :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.
You & yours :	Nye, Naomi Shihab.

Visit her website by clicking this link - Naomi Shihab Nye

Note: in order to access the virtual bookshelf, you need to sign into Koha.

Does the Internet Undermine Culture?

The Internet is certainly transforming the economy and the culture. Andrew Keen (author: The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture) says the consequences of the digital age need to be managed.



NPR : Does the Internet Undermine Culture?

Powered by ScribeFire.

Global Internet Conditions

This link monitors global Internet conditions around the clock. Akamai can provide real-time data to identify global regions with the greatest traffic, cities with the slowest Web connections, and geographic areas with the most Web traffic.

http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/dataviz1.html

Powered by ScribeFire.

My Grazr Widget

"The Grazr Widget is a free publishing tool for feeds. It lets you quickly and easily display RSS, RDF, Atom, and OPML files on a Web page so they can be viewed by any visitor to the site" (Grazer.com)

My Grazr Widget URL

(see my Grazr Widget on the sidebar)

ZoomClouds

I love this little content analysis tool. Thumbs up to ZoomClouds, which customizes tags for a website or blog, making it easy to "dig" through the content to find specific key terms. (See mine on the sidebar.)

Don't Download This Song

Considering digital copyrights, this song is a perfect educational tool (and a much needed laugh)!

Travel Asia - Google Custom Search Engine

This custom search engine was created for a 7th grade geography class and their study of Asia. (http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=005921722234063711286%3A-kogpg1foxu)

Travel Asia

Watching Your Every Move

Watching Your Every Move - New York Times

As I was reading one of my classmate's posts on his blog, I was intrigued with this article from the New York Times. It is a good follow-up to my post about surveillance in our school district.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Unshelved - Master's Degree

Surveillance

Kids are quick and better at technology that many of us are, so beginning next year our school district is going to be using a system-wide reporting and surveillance program.

The program will give reports to teachers throughout the day about sites that students are accessing. In addition, it will give the administrators a report of top sites used in the district. At the end of the 2006-2007 school year, the top six sites included:

• The School District Home page


• Slime World Cup Soccer


• Play Line Rider Game


• Kiekko Internet Hockey


• Google


• emGames

Students will know that there is a surveillance in place. I wonder how the use of computers will change next year. It makes me think about Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development. Will kids do the right thing because they are "being watched" or because it's the right thing to do?

In addition, this program will track all activities and applications, so teachers may lose technology in their classroom or be asked to participate in some technology integration professional development if the reports show inactivity on the computers.

Bloglines

This coming year I will be taking a job as a high school librarian in my school district. I figure that I will need all the help I can get, so my Scopus search involved the terms: information literacy, high school and librar*

Click on the link below to enjoy!

LIS2600 Scopus Mackley

I Will Survive

"I want you to be a problem-solver."

These are the words that my students have heard me say for fourteen years. They know my philosophy:

"If it were easy, you wouldn't need to take this class."

"Some things don't have an easy answer or any answer at all."

"You need to live with the questions, work with the questions, love the questions..."

Now that I'm in a class that is beyond my expertise...well, let's just say that I have a bit more empathy for those students who really don't even know where to begin. I'm an adult. I can advocate for myself. I know who to talk to and where to go for answers. I can manage my time. I don't really need much sleep or food or t.v. or time with my family.

I Will Survive
Powered by ScribeFire.

"I Will Survive" (aka "Ode to the Computer")

At first I was afraid
I was petrified
kept thinking
I could never live
without you by my side

...boy was I wrong!

Panoptic Society

Three things stuck me about Marc Smith's talk on Social Networking.

The idea of a panoptic society in which "very little of what we do will not leave a trace" reminded me of the movie, Demolition Man, starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock. With social control as the theme, both positive and negative effects are portrayed with humor in this movie about good versus evil.

As with other films set in the future, many new technologies are shown. Some of these have subsequently been invented and a few are even widespread.

• The addition of skills to the brain during the cryogenic process in order to aid rehabilitation

• Profanity Sensors which automatically print out tickets and fines whenever a person utters out a swear word. The typical responses include: '(name), You are fined one credit for a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute.', '(name), You are fined one half credit for a sotto voice violation of the Verbal Morality Statue.', 'Your repeated violation of the Verbal Morality Statute has caused me to notify the San Angeles Police Department, please remain where you are for your reprimand."

• "Laser defibrillation" to remove people from their frozen state.

• Retinal scan

• CCTV (including audio) covering every location except the underground areas.

• Video conferencing and videophones

• Toilet paper replaced by "three seashells"
  

(Wikipedia)

Demolition Man (1993) - Trailers
Powered by ScribeFire.

Also, the Collective Action Dilemma Theory makes a lot of sense, but I never really thought about it. The more information you have about other people's choices really do make a difference in your choices. You have a chance to see their outcomes, successes, failures, etc. It reminded me of the first guy who has to putt on the green. The others in the group get to see the break of the putt and the speed of the green. It's the same premise.

Finally, I have found some sense of sanity with Marc Smith's comment about technology ADD. There is a very specific difference between recency and relevancy. Understanding the difference is invaluable.

"A lot of social life goes on around us; we don't notice, but our computer will." - Marc Smith

Camping Out

Camping out... That's what I have been doing the past three weeks - at my computer. My husband brings me food and water. The cat litter is cleaned. My basic needs are being met. I guess I should be thankful for that.

Camping out... That's what I have been doing for the past three days - with 300 seventh grade students, 60 parents and 16 fellow teachers. The Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after Memorial Day mark the annual trek to the Chesapeake Bay for our school's environmental camp. I am one of three environmental coordinators. Camp is like planning a wedding or some other major event...organizing, buses,meal choices, cabin groups, activities, medical staff, packing lists, snacks, sports, chaperones, safety, etc. You can imagine the possibilities of what could possibly happen on this 216 acre camp.