Is quitting Twitter more poular than re-tweeting?

That's the headline from this Associated Press article.

Must be true because after all my "hyper-connectivity" posts I've decided to dump Twitter as well.

Do You Cough Safely?

Watch this video.

(tip to Norm)

Good Flu Info

Aetiology is a good blog to visit for flu info.  This is just the kind of thing she researches.  Effect Measure is the best at this kind of thing.  That blog is put together by a number of public health scientists.  They even have a great Flu Wiki "presented at the level of the intelligent layperson " because they, as they say,  realize the importance of this "teachable moment."

This is the link for the CDC site on this flu.

This is the link for general flu information for schools.

This is where NOT to get good information on this kind of thing.  (Randall cracks me up every time.)

Hyperconnected II

Last week I responded to a concern about our increasing hyperconnective-ness. Doug Johnson at The Blue Skunk Blog had a great post on the same issue. Look at what one of his commentor's had to say about this:

"I have been feeling increasingly resentful of the time I've been investing online. During the March school break we have, I did not blog, read my feeds, check in to Twitter or surf. I thought that one week would be enough but that one week extended into a month. In fact this is the first time since the end of March that I've read anything online beyond my email. I must say that I was feeling extremely guilty for disconnecting myself until I read this post and found that others are feeling the same. I am coming to the realization that I can't know it all and can't do it all and am giving myself permission to be flexible and re-wire as needed, depending upon my work load, personal and family responsibilities."

On my own post JenFW had this to say:

"I'm still struggling to find balance. I feel pressure from many sources to do it all, and I simply can't. I don't even want to, but how do you choose what'sbest?

I know there's no best. Still, it's hard. I'm saturated, and I suspect readers are as well."

I gave some advice in my earlier post, but this seems to be much bigger of an issue than I realized. Especially the guilt aspect. I would highly recommend you check out the work of Mark Forster because he has some great things to say on this topic, like his comparing your choices to a menu in a restaurant. When you look at a menu and choose our meal, you're basically saying, "No thanks," to everything else on that menu. This isn't a cause for guilt or concern for the most part. We might like the place and come back to try other items, but we know that there are limits to both or bellies and our wallets and we're fine with that.

Being "connected" or using all these "web 2.0" tools should be like that. Go ahead and try some, but only commit to what works for you. And don't let anyone let you feel guilty about your choices. As I mentioned before, I don't use Facebook. I tried it for a few months but realized I'm in contact with all the people I want to be in contact with and it just felt like "one more thing" to me. My brother, on the other hand, loves it. He's now connected to a whole slew of high school friends he'd moved away from and is happily catching up. But he doesn't Twitter or blog or anything else. To each his own. Don't you think it's better to be good at a few things than spread too thin?

We all have only 24 hours in a day and have to decide how we're going to spend it.

(image cc flickr)

Another Way To Save District Money

From Stephen Krashen's newsletter:

"Recent research done by scholars at Indiana University, UC Davis and the University of Minnesota has shown that in general state high school exit exams do not lead to higher employment, or higher earnings by graduates, nor does the presence of high school exit exams result in improved academic achievement.

In fact, researchers have yet to discover any clear evidence that High School Exit Exams benefit anyone except the companies that make and sell them.

Stephen Krashen"

Give Vaccines

Givevaccines.org is one of those cool online vocabulary games.  But while you challange your lexicon, you'll be donating life-saving vaccines to third world countries in need.  (tip to Science-Based Parenting.)

(image cc flickr)

America's Story

Have you checked out the America's Story site from the Library of congress?  I just heard about it from Alice Mercer and the crackerjack crew over at Instructify.  I especially liked this bit on Harry Houdini and his efforts to expose fraud in the "spiritualist" world of his day.  It's a great site with all kinds of wonderful stuff.  Do give it a peek.

Happy Earth Day

(image cc from flickr)

Algorithms and More

This article is about just about everything, doesn't it?  It's got censorship, skepticsm, Amazon, Twitter, cataloging, Dewy, searches, abortion, racism, homophobia, conspiracies, and taxonomies!

Whew!

Ray Bradbury

I met him when I was in college.  I heard him speak, didn't want to stand in that long signing line, but got a quick handshake from him as he made his way to the signing table.  Great man.  Go check out these wonderful videos of him talking about the importance of reading and libraries in his life. Thanks to Esme for the link.

Update: Make sure to watch the long version if you can--it's amazing. Turns out he and I both met the loves of our lives in a bookstore.  How cool is that?

Harper's Clubhouse

In a previous post, I ranted about the difficulties of building a playhouse "kit" we bought for my daughter's 6th birthday. Well it's mostly finished now, so I thought I'd share since some of you have asked. Here she is inviting you in. Yes, it's huge. 8x8 square on the floor. 9' high at the tip. Real windows, shingles, flower boxes, etc. The front door is small, but as you can barely see there is a regular-sized adult door in the back.

There are still some touch ups to do, but she's been "moved in" for about a week now and we're all happy with it. One cool thing is that I can hang out there with her and my laptop and still get wireless internet. Sweet!

Hyperconnected

In a recent blog post Joyce Valenza over at the School Library Journal said she was feeling anxiety and guilt about being "hyperconnected."

This is something we need to chew over, people.  There seem to be many in her boat and we need to deal.

The first problem is the anxiety.  Now her anxiety is different than some others and I want to mention both types here.  Hers cmes from being "hyperconnected" as she calls it.  The other type is trepidatious.  They are afraid or unconvinced that all these new online and connectivity tools are all they're cracked up to be but feel guilt at not knowing or not being a part of something others say is so wonderful.

For the hyperconnected:

• One in One Out:  There are only so many hours in the day.  You can also only respond to so many inputs at a time.  By inputs I mean your home voice mail, your cell voice mail, your home email, your work email, your inbox, your Facebook account, your Twitter account, your RSS feed reader, the six discussion forums you contribute to and so on.  I would suggest you make a list of all of your inputs and take a cold hard look at them. Prioritize.  Take away or combine as many as you can.  I personally deleted my Facebook and don't really contribute much to the Nings I have pages on.  This blog, my RSS reader, and a small and limited Twitter circle is more than enough for me.  It's all about balance.

• A Cooling Off Period:  You just heard about a great new service!  You can't wait to try it out and immediately blog/Twitter/Pageflake it!  Whoa, Hoss.  Take a minute.  Write it down on a list of things to review tomorrow.  Bookmark it for later.  Take some time to get to know it.  Ask yourself what you want to use it for.  Would it be worth giving up one of your current inputs for?  Would it be a simple matter of switching platforms or is this a whole other ball o'wax?  

• Keeping Up With the Joneses: You notice that someone you follow is promoting a great new service!  You have a measly tired old watchyamacallitt and they are showing off the dazzling attributes of this new, improved and much prettier-designed thingamajiggy! You rush off to switch platforms...  Again, wait.  Think about One In One Out.  Think about Cooling Off.  Sure, maybe it looks better or has more features or does things your current input can't do.  But do you really need those things?  How much will you use them.  I see a lot of blogs with little widgets the author has slapped up without much thought.  Do you really need to know where in the world our readers are?  Maybe you do, maybe not.  But think about it.  Do you really need a calendar/countdown/random quote widget?  Only you can tell, but take the time to consider it.  Just because Seth or Merlin or whoever does it or has it doesn't mean you do too.

For the trepidatious:

• Jump In: I know, I just got through telling people to cool off and now I'm telling you to jump in?  What gives?  Because they already have too many inputs and need a filter.  You, on the other hand have one or two and are wondering about trying Twitter and/or Facebook and/or a wiki.  Go ahead, try it out.  Give it at least a few weeks to see how it works for you.  That's the important point.  Facebook works for many, but not for me.  I'm already in contact with the people I want to be in contact with and have no need to self promote more than I already do.  I'd rather spend the time working on this blog or living my life.  I have specific periods of time that I am online.  I have my online plate full.  I'd rather spend that time on the few things I know well than a million things that I can't keep updated.  But you don't have that problem.  I'm not saying to join Twitter just because your friends told you it's the best thing evah.  I'm telling you to give it a try.  Twitter is one of those things that you can't do "right" or "wrong."  You just do it your way and see if it's of value to you or not.  If it is, you'll have a new way to connect with favorite people and organizations.  If it's not, no prob.  Delete the account and move on.  I had a Facebook account for more than six months before I took it out of my basket of tricks.

• Why?  Why do you want to try a wiki/social network/blog, etc.  Is it because you have something to say or just because you keep hearing things from your kids/students/ presenters/bloggers?  Some of these things can be just plain fun.  Some of them will increase your effectiveness as a professional.  Some of them are both.  Some of them are neither.  Which ones are which?  That's the catch: it's different for different people.  Some people are great, born bloggers but have nothing to offer any other forum and they in turn have nothing to offer the blogger.  Some bloggers have dropped completely into Twitter or some other form of micro-blogging and it fits them like a glove.  I'm not saying not to at least acknowledge what all those presenters/bloggers and others are pushing.  That's why I said jump right in and try it out.  But then it'll be up to you to let what works for you to filter up and what just doesn't to filter down.

Part of it's connectivity and part of it is commitment.  I have a simple make-a-call cell phone. It's mostly so I can stay in touch with my family.  It doesn't get much of a signal in the school building but that's fine with me.  Twitter is blocked in my district.  These two things lead me to only check my Twitter account in the afternoons for a certain window of time.  This is a limitation, but it works for me.  It keeps me from spending too much time on it when I shouldn't but it's there when I need it.  The same might go for you with other tools.

So get rid of the guilt and anxiety and trepidation.  Relax.  Have fun.  Set some limits.  Do more with less and enjoy yourself.  And be sure to comment on my blog, link to me on Delicious, or send me a tweet and let me know what you think!

(image cc "mama sita")

Quit Forwarding

No, you can't get free glasses at Target for the kiddies. It really is too good to be true.

(image cc "Ester")

Retro Talk or Dumbing Down?

There is a post over at the As Time Goes By blog with a meditation on the changes that can happen in our language when we try to purposely dumb it down for the general reader. He mentions about how these kind of references, allusions and big words, used in the right context, can actually increase our knowledge:

"Throughout my lifetime, a good deal of my continuing education has resulted from my elders' use of references I didn't understand and sometimes didn't ask about, not wanting to reveal my ignorance at the moment. But I tracked them down later and learned. I'm pretty sure I wasn't taught about Diogenes in school, but discovered him through such an incident."

I've always picked things like that up through references in song lyrics, essays, and idle overheard talk. Pop culture is richer because of it's constant references to classical culture. Whether it's Deep Purple referencing a Beethoven sonata, Alexander the Great referred to in Die Hard, or even just "that book by Nabokov" slyly alluded to in that Police song it would make our already often tone-deaf culture even more bereft if we consciously removed this kind of thing from our language. I hope it proves to be a Sisyphean effort.

And anyway, who then would cry the tears of Eos?

(Go ahead. Look it up.)

My Librarian Hero

Here's a video on the Biblioburro that I blogged about last fall. How awesome is this guy. Whenever I start complaining about funding for the library make me watch this again.

Critical Thinking

Scott has a great post which shows off his critical thinking when he runs across an interesting but ultimately dubious bit of "research."

I mean, sometimes you just have to wonder who is pulling your leg.  It could be a...ZOMBIE!  (via Leila)

Get it?  Pulling leg?  Zombie?

Yes, this testing month is getting to me...

Judith Krug

An appreciation from the NY Times.

An appreciation from Rob Boston at AU.

"“We do this by making sure libraries have information and ideas across the spectrum of social and political thought, so people can choose what they want to read or view or listen to. Some users find materials in their local library collection to be untrue, offensive, harmful or even dangerous. But libraries serve the information needs of all of the people in the community — not just the loudest, not just the most powerful, not even just the majority. Libraries serve everyone.”

Read a banned book!

The Beak of the Finch

The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner is truly a masterwork.  It is an example of what popular science writing can be.  Not only is it not technical and not dumbed-down, it's highly engaging and readable.  It mostly covers the research done by the Grants on the finch populations in the Galapagos Islands, but it follows other paths to show off the main idea that evolution by natural selection is not only a slow and gradual force, but something that can be witnessed as it's happening.

Here, as in almost all writing, it is the powerful metaphors that make the book.  To help you get your mind around the idea that natural selection is a slow gradual process and one that is chaotically happening all the time all around us, Weiner asks us to imagine the plume of an erupting volcano.  Up close it is a roiling, unpredictable confusion of ash and smoke.  From a distance it is an almost solid billowing plume that seems to change very little from one moment to the next.  It's this kind of writing that 

We would be wise to heed the information we learn from this book.  It lays out not only what is happening and why and how but what it means to our health and welfare.  A misunderstanding of the power of natural selection has led to the failures of pesticides and antibiotics, among other things.

As Weiner writes, "For better and for worse, this may be one of the most dramatic moments to observe evolution in action since evolution began" (p. 277).

What Do I Do Next?

The editor of Junior Skeptic magazine, Daniel Loxton wrote an influential essay in 2007, "Where Do We Go From Here?" (linked here) that got all of us interested in the promotion of science and critical thinking excited about the future of this movement.  It has been now followed up by a massive undertaking and published here as a quick list and a longer pdf as "What Do I Do Next?"

Many of them are relevant to us as parents and educators wishing to increase the scientific and critical thinking literacy of our students and future citizens.  Ten suggestions for your community. Eleven for our schools.  Four more for libraries.  Thirteen for online activsm.  105 great ideas all together.

As a teacher and future teacher-librarian I think this kind of critical thinking and science literacy promotion is essential.  Check it out.

Wild Rumpus!

(via TWIE)

Happy Birthday, Thomas Jefferson

"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Read some more great quotes from a great man.

My Spring Break

This, my friends, is a playhouse we special ordered. This is my daughter's gift from us (and chip-ins from extended family) for her sixth birthday. Cute, no?

It's also most of my Spring Break. When you read the description you read things like "Floor kit included," "Everything is pre-cut, nothing to saw," and, best of all, "Easy to assemble with hammer, screwdriver, tape measure and level."

Friggin' liars. "Kit" my tuckus. It came wrapped in plastic on a pallet. When my neighbor and I opened it up to inventory the pieces it was something like 16,000 bits and pieces. Maybe.

Four of us guys (two of them with much building experience) spent around twelve hours on the Sunday before break framing the damn thing. We've spent the last week on and off adding stuff and priming and painting and more. We've done everything except finish painting and shingling the roof. No, really.

So it'll get done this weekend and my daughter will love it but SHEESH. Oh, and the tools we've had to use they forget to mention include a power drill, ladders, metal shears, freaking SCAFFOLDING, and yes, a damn saw.

I know it'll all be worth it and yadda yadda, but give me a break. I had no clue what I was getting into.

But then when do I?

_________________________
*This post has been edited to remove disparaging remarks about the company we bought it from.  It has come to my attention that a search of this product includes this post high up on the search results.  My daughter loves this thing and I don't want to badmouth anyone.  I'm here to blog about things like reading out loud to your kids more, not consumer protection.  Yes, you should know what you're getting into when you take on a project like this (or do what we did and have plenty of more knowledgeable friends to help out), but it's my blog and I'm going to go ahead and blur our some of the details.

Librarians: The Challenge!

The quotable Ms. Yingling has a cool challenge on her blog.

She wants to know...

"Here's the challenge:

1. List the number of students in your school and volumes in your collection.

2. State the year your library was built and/or refurbished.

3. List one BEST feature and one worst feature of your library.

4. Tell us one dream you have for your library.

5. Include a picture(s) if possible."

Here's the answers from my media specialist (I'll add pictures later).

"How many students do we have? 1400ish now....have had close to 2000 at one point

How many books do we have in the library? 30000 includes prof. and audio

What year was the library built?  (1996?) yes

What year was the library refurbished?  (2006?) summer before 2005/2006 school year

What is the BEST feature of the library? openness and room to have different areas of instruction

What is the WORST feature of the library?  lack of equipment storage near by.  Used to have it where the DRA room is but we were losing too many books when teachers were asked to check them in and out on their own....part was due to computer issues. 

What is one dream you have for the library?  To have teachers utilize the resources to the fullest...databases, software, books.  Some feel like there is not enough time to teach this.  Not feel like it is a place only to get books or to send their kids when they want to get "a break" from them (yes they do this!). "

Put up yours and send her a link.  Can't wait to see what's out there.

New Librarian Blog to Check Out

Read or Die: A Librarian's Tale from a fellow SLMS student who writes awesomely thoughtful posts like this one on the economic crisis and it's effects on public libraries.

April Fool

So if you haven't figured it out already, the two posts I  put up yesterday were April Fool's jokes.  Fuse #8 has not revealed the favorite picture books as yet (of course I' haven't gone through my feed reader yet, so she may have started--it'll certainly lead to some interesting discussion I'm sure).  It was just a play on her "Triumvirate of Mediocrity" post from a while back.

And there is no such book as The Vengenace of Argir or an author named "Orson Wright" (as far as I know).  I took some of the ideas from Travis's post on "Create Your Debut FantasyNovel Cover" from 100 Scope Notes and tweaked it for my own nefarious purposes.  I must admit it's quite fun.

First, got to this name generator to make up an author name.

Then go to this fantasy novel name generator to get a title.

Now he said to go to Photobucket and click on "surreal art" but Photobucket is blocked at my workplace (natch), so I went to a service which searches for Creative Commons licensed images and types in "surreal" instead.  Travis gives a formula for picking a random image, but I just picked one that kinda went with my title.

Finally, I used Picnik to edit it (and added the touch of an award sticker).

Here's another one I made later in the day.  I think it'd be fun to try this with my students.  I have them writing a bunch of poems this month--maybe I'll let them finish up the project by creating their own poetry volume cover.

Have a great month.

Librarians Are Awesome

Here's a good article in one of our state's professional magazines about the great work media specialists do.

Cool

(via Judge a Book by its Cover)

Don't Read This Blog Post!

And don't read this blog.

And then whatever you do, don't read this blog either.

NSFW!

(But funny as all get out).

The Vengeance of Argir

I'll never understand why some things are marketed to adults and some things are marketed for children.  Here is a perfect example.  Orson Wright's masterful and award-winning The Vengeance of Argir is a book that any reader would love.  It will do well as a children's novel, but I fear many adults may overlook it's brilliance.  Why did the publisher ghettoize it?  Just like The Book Thief  and the His Dark Materials trilogy, I hope this breathtaking novel breaks out of the confines of the children's section.

Travis at 100 Scope Notes has already reviewed it favorably and it's a sure-fire winner of more awards and is already making the rounds of the Cybil's judges.  I'll be curious to hear your thoughts as soon as you can snag a copy.

The Fuse #8 Best Picture Books Revealed!

I won't spoil the whole thing for you, but here are the top three best picture books evah according to Elizabeth Bird and the readers of Fuse #8 (see her commentary here).