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Reflections on my first Twitter Chat: what worked well, what overwhelmed me, and some silly things I tweeted.

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I’m stepping out of my comfort zone again.  I’ve committed to a Twitter Chat tomorrow night.  Therefore, it’s confession time.  In the year-plus I’ve been on Twitter, I’ve never participated in a Twitter… Read More →

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Find out how to bring two classroom routines into the 21st century with QR Codes.

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How do we teach kids (and ourselves) to unplug from media in an effort to interact with others, not just screens?

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Screen-Free Week goes from 4/29-5/5. While it might seem drastic and unfeasible to completely unplug, think about what steps you can take to be less connected next week.

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I’ve become a little too connected in recent years. I became an e-mail addict freshman year of college. I got a cell phone right after September 11th. An iTouch came into my life… Read More →

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If you’re in an elementary school, you’ve inevitably had discussion with parents about handwriting.  My policy for writer’s notebooks was always, “As long as I can read it, it’s neat enough.”  I didn’t… Read More →

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I knew earlier this week that I’d be blogging today so, when I work up, my mind was in composition mode. I was so busy thinking about what I would write that the empty plastic water bottle went into the sink rather than the trash and a fork went into the oatmeal. NPR did straighten out my attention for a while when they discussed new information that is being found regarding Emmett Till’s murder. In the grand scheme of things, his brutal murder didn’t occur that long ago. It was during our modern times when information could be easily recorded and distributed. Records from the trial disappeared ages ago and those who witnessed the courtroom scenes are still being sought after to find out what happened in that room. I remember my time down there in the Delta, visiting those historic sites and meeting people who were there then. I’d love to take students down there. One real difference in being an academic library rather than a school librarian is a diminished access to students.

I have to wonder that if things from that time could disappear so easily, now secure is our information today when we’re encouraged to place our images, music and writings in cloud space that it owned by someone else. We argue debate whether to plan new purchases for print books or ebooks as if personal comfort is the key factor. Who owns those ebooks and journal articles (even after we think we’ve purchased them) and how accessible ebooks will be as platforms change over time are things we really need to question. Granted, ebooks do provide greater accessibility to information for those with reading difficulties.

GoogleReader is gone. Other RSS aggregators disappeared as folk turned to GoogleReader and now, it’s disappearing. Soon, iGoogle, a Google homepage that also serves as an aggregator will be gone, too. iGoogle is very similar to MyYahoo, which still functions. I’ve decided to use Feedly to gather my RSS feeds and I’m finding it a bit clunky and it seems I’ve lost some of my favorite blogs. I need to spend some time finding them again, tweaking the site and creating a display that makes sense to me. At the same time, I’m still wondering about WordPress and blogging. Is there future limited? Well, in this day and age, it certainly is, but just how limited and, what next?

Maybe I’d feel better about the lifespan of WordPress if they sold out to Facebook or Amazon. By the way, today is the last day to get a free LibraryThing account if you’re disappointed in the GoodReads takeover. My LibraryThing account is so old that I don’t remember either the username or password! Something else to add to the ‘to do’ list!

The space between ebooks, Google and Amazon has me wondering about the data, both my personal data and that which becomes available to me,  these giants access. As Marc Aronson states  “There are obviously privacy concerns here, concerns about how we are seeing reading (though reading has been collective at other times in its history, indeed one debate among historians of reading is exactly when reading shifted from being primarily oral to primarily silent), and concerns about overvaluing the now.”

Yet and still, basic Internet access remains a critical issue. To the rescue is Connect2Create, a campaign to get major Internet companies to provide discount service, equipment and training to low income families in need. Mindshift writes “The program offers low-cost devices and Internet service, as well as access to digital literacy training programs around the country, hoping to give access to the estimated 100 million Americans who have no broadband connection at home and another 62 million who don’t use the Internet at all.”

Tarie recently share information on the Bangkok Book Awards: ” Each shortlist includes at least one book by a Thai author and one book by an international author, books set in different parts of Thailand, and at least one book in translation from Thai. You can check out the picture book shortlist here.“

From Debbie Reese  “Minnesota Public Radio has a story up today that showcases how Heid Erdrich is using video format for her poetry. The video they have up is STUNNING!”

I visit Anali’s First Amendment for things like this single serving cheesecake (I gain weight just from her yummy photos!) but I end up finding this opportunity to teach writing in Ghana. I would so love to do that, even more than the cheesecake!

I’ll be posting April’s new releases by authors of color this week! One book I’ve previously missed is Justin Scott Parr’s Sage Carrington, 8^th Grade Science Slueth. Such a cute book!

I hear we’re expecting a snow and rain mix tomorrow. I really hope this slow to warm spring means fewer and milder spring storms.

I hope you enjoy your week ahead!

Filed under: Sunday Reads Tagged: delta, Emmett Till, nip, sunday morning reads, technology

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Watch a video call I had with elementary school students from Julie Johnson's school about the upcoming Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge.

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By José van Dijck

In 2006, there appeared to be a remarkable consensus among Internet gurus, activists, bloggers, and academics about the promise of Web 2.0 that users would attain more power than they ever had in the era of mass media. Rapidly growing platforms like Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006) facilitated users’ desire to make connections and exchange self-generated content. The belief in social media as technologies of a new “participatory” culture was echoed by habitual tools-turned-into-verbs: buttons for liking, trending, following, sharing, trending, et cetera. They articulated a feeling of connectedness and collectivity, strongly resonating the belief that social media enhanced the democratic input of individuals and communities. According to some, Web 2.0 and its ensuing range of platforms formed a unique chance to return the “public sphere” — a sphere that had come to be polluted by commercial media conglomerates — back in the hands of ordinary citizens.

Eight years after the apex of techno-utopian celebration, a number of large platforms have come to dominate a social media ecosystem vastly different from when the platforms just started to evolve. It’s time for a reality check. What did social media do for the public — users like you — and for the ideal of a more democratic public space? Do they indeed promote connectedness and participation in community-driven activities or are they rather engines of connectivity, driven by automated algorithms and invisible business models?  Online socializing, as it now seems, is inimically mediated by a techno-economic logic anchored in the principles of popularity and winner-takes-all principles that enhance the pervasive logic of mass media instead of offering alternatives.

Most contemporary social media giants once started out as informal platforms for networking or “friending” (Facebook), for exchanging user-generated content (YouTube), or for participating in opinionated discussions (Twitter). It was generally assumed that in the new social media space, all users were equal. However, platforms’ algorithms measured relevance and importance in terms of popularity rankings, which subsequently formed the quantifiable basis of data-driven interactivity wrapped in “social” rhetoric such as following, trending, or sharing. In this platform-mediated ecosystem, sponsored and professionally generated content soon received a lot more attention than user-generated content. Platforms like YouTube and Facebook gradually changed their interfaces to yield business models that were staked in two basic variables: attention and user data. By 2012, once informal social traffic between users had become fully formalized, automated, and commoditized by platforms owned and exploited by fast growing corporate giants. Although each of these platforms nurses its own proprietary mechanisms, they are staked in the same values or principles: popularity, hierarchical ranking, quick growth, large traffic volumes, fast turnovers, and personalized recommendations. A like is not a retweet, but most algorithms are underpinned by the norms of popularity and fast-trending topics.

The cultivation of online sociality is increasingly dominated by four major chains of platforms: Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. These chains share some operational principles even if they differ on some ideological premises (open versus closed systems). Some consider social media platforms as alternatives to the old mass media, praising their potential to empower individual users who can contribute their own opinions or content to a media universe that was before pretty much closed to amateurs. Although we should not underestimate this newly acquired power of the web as a publishing medium for all, it is hard to keep up the tenet that social media are alternatives to mass media. Over the past few years, it has become increasingly obvious that the logics of mass media and social media are intimately intertwined. Not just on the level of platforms mechanics and content (tweets have become the equivalent of soundbites) but also on the level of user dynamics and business models; YouTube-Google now collaborates with many former foes from Hollywood to turn their platform into the gateway to the entertainment universe. Newspapers and television stations are inevitably integrated in the ecosystem of connective media where the mechanisms of data-driven user traffic determines who and what gets most attention, hence drawing customers and eyeballs.

This new connective media system has reshaped the power relationships between platform owners and users, not only in terms of who may steer information but also who controls the vast amount of user data that rushes through the combined platforms every day. What are the larger political and social concerns behind deceptively simple interfaces and celebrated user-convenient tools? Where in 2006 the notion of user power still seemed unproblematic, the relationship between users and owners of social media platforms is now contentious and embattled. In the wake of the growing monopolization of niches (Facebook for social networking, Google for search, Twitter for microblogging) it is important to redefine and reappraise the meaning of “social,” “public,” “community,” and “nonprofit.” The ecosystem of connective media has no separate spaces for the “public”; it is a nirvana of interoperability which major players argue for deregulation and which imposes American neoliberal conditions on a global space where boundaries are considered disruptions of user convenience. Common public values, such as independence, trust, or equal opportunities, are ready for reassessment if they need to survive in an environment that is defined by social media logic.

José van Dijck is a professor of Comparative Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam; her latest book, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media has just been published by Oxford University Press (2013).

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Image credit: 3D little human character X9 in a Network, holding Tablet Computer. People series. Image by jojje9999, iStockphoto.

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In 2010, Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old computer programmer and founder of Reddit, downloaded thousands of scholarly articles from the online journal archive JSTOR. He had legal access to the database through his research fellowship at Harvard University; he also, however, had a history of dramatic activism against pay-for-content online services, having previously downloaded and released roughly 100,000,000 documents from the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) database, which charges eight cents per page to access public files. Given his status as a prominent “hacktivist” and the sheer quantity of files involved, law enforcement agents concluded that Swartz planned to distribute the cache of articles and indicted him on multiple felony counts carrying a possible sentence of $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison.

Swartz was slated to go to trial this year but committed suicide in early January, prompting a public outcry against the prosecution in his case. Swartz was a prominent voice in the heated debate surrounding modern copyright law and public access and use (see his 2008 “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto”). New York’s current issue contains a great feature from Wesley Yang discussing Swartz’s activism, his life, and the controversy in which he was embroiled.

In the ongoing debate over Swartz’s prosecution, we’ve pulled together a brief reading list on the issues surrounding American copyright in the digital age from OUP’s stable:

Copyright’s Paradox by Neil Weinstock Netanel

Netanel weighs current IP law against the basic right of freedom of speech. Like Swartz, he finds it unacceptably constricting.

The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Intellectual Property by Dan Hunter

A concise overview of the current state and history of IP law in America from a prominent New York University IP expert.

Copyright and Mass Digitization by Maurizio Borghi and Stavroula Karapapa

Two UK scholars discuss “whether mass digitisation is consistent with existing copyright principles.”

How to Fix Copyright by William Patry

A Senior Copyright Counsel at Google takes a look at the changing economic realities of the globalizing, digitizing world and concludes that our government must “remake our copyright laws to fit our times.”

Democracy of Sound by Alex Sayf Cummings

An overview of music piracy stretching back to the advent of recorded sound. The RIAA made headlines throughout the last decade by litigating against users who shared music online, but musicians, record companies, songwriters, and fans were navigating this territory for nearly a century before the Internet became a factor.

Unfair to Genius: The Strange and Litigious Career of Ira B. Arnstein by Gary Rosen

The story of one early 20^th century musician who spent decades conducting high-profile lawsuits against the leading pop icons of the day. Though he never won a single case, Ira Arnstein managed to have a significant impact on the shape of music copyright through the decisions in his numerous cases.

Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain by Robert Spoo

Spoo homes in on the contested publication of Ulysses to reveal the impact on copyright of literary modernism (and vice versa). Characters such as Ezra Pound, the infamous publisher Samuel Roth, and of course James Joyce flesh out a revealing story about artists grappling with free speech and authorship.

Oxford University Press is committed to developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners in all areas of the law. Our practitioner programme continues to grow, with key texts in commercial law, arbitration and private international law, plus the innovative new ebook version of Blackstone’s Criminal Practice. We are also delighted to announce the new edition of the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, one of the most trusted reference resources in international law. In addition to the books you can find on this page, OUP publishes a wide range of law journals and online products.

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By Alfred Rolington

Cyber attacks on Iran have been well publicised in the press and on Western television. General William Shelton, a top American cyber general, has now turned these attacks around saying that these events are giving Iran a strategic and tactical cyber advantage creating a very serious “force to be reckoned with.”

Since 2010, Iran’s infrastructure has been attacked hundreds of times by cyber viruses. To date the most documented and best known cyber attacks have been aimed at Iran and are known as cyber worms called Stuxnet. These electronic worms were used to attack Iranian nuclear power plants and connected systems. General Shelton, who heads up Air Force Space Command and Air Force cyber operations, gave a briefing to reporters in January 2013, where he said that the 2010 Stuxnet virus attack on Iran’s Natanz uranium processing plant had generated considered responses from Iran that have led to improved offensive and defensive cyber-capabilities.

In December 2012, the Stuxnet virus returned and hit computer and energy operations and companies in the southern Hormozgan region. Shelton claimed that Iran’s improved cyber defense capability had helped Iran protect it against subsequent attacks on oil terminals and other manufacturing plants. This new capability, he believed, will subsequently be used by Iran against its enemies in the near future. “They are going to be a force to be reckoned with,” said General Shelton, “with the potential capabilities that they will develop over the years.” At present he stated that America had over six thousand cyber specialists employed to monitor, analyse and counter cyber attacks, and he was intending to employ another thousand specialists over the next twelve months to improve America’s effectiveness in this vital area.

Moreover, assassinations and assassination attempts in conjunction with cyber attacks are thought to be part of an integrated plan of attacks on Iran’s nuclear research and manufacturing capabilities. A year ago on 11 January 2012, Ahmadi Roshan, a 32-year-old Iranian scientist, and his driver were both killed when a motorcyclist attached a bomb to their car as they were driving. So far these attacks, which seem to form part of the broader cyber-related strategy aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, have successfully killed five Iranian nuclear scientists in the last two years according to FARS, a Tehran news agency. However, in January 2013, the Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi claimed that his organisation had stopped a number of attempts to kill nuclear scientists so it is uncertain which reports are accurate.

These attacks on Iran’s electronic systems represent only a very small amount of the current cyber attack and threat capability. Increasingly, all governments and corporations must respond to the cyber reality. With an interconnected world, cyber attacks on infrastructure have become frequent and damaging. Cyber crime is costing businesses billions of pounds although they tend to keep quiet about the attacks. (The BBC reported that UK cyber crime costs £27bn a year.) Efforts to get a grip on the problem had been hampered by firms who don’t want to admit they had been the victims of attacks for fear of “reputational damage”. Baroness Neville-Jones, Prime Minister David Cameron, and Foreign Secretary William Hague met the bosses of some of Britain’s biggest businesses, including Barclays, HSBC, Tesco and BA, to urge them to take the problem more seriously.

In September 2012, a hacker called vorVzakone posted a message on a Russian online forum saying that a malevolent Trojan, called Project Blitzkrieg, was capable of attacking the American financial industry, that it had already critically affected up to five hundred American targets, and that it had stolen over five million dollars. “This attack combines both a technical, innovative backend with the tactics of a successful, organized cybercrime movement,” a McAfee report explained, adding that the next target would probably be investment banks.

Hackers, apparently working independently as criminal gangs, have grown in their specialization faster than most police and government intelligence organisations would have believed possible. Yet cyber hackers working for governments have targeted everything from computer systems to power plants from the US to Iran, Europe to China, Australia and beyond. These civil servant hackers are often employed by governments to help fulfill a strategy, to change information and publicity, or to gain information and bring systems down.

One example comes from Ray Boisvert, who recently retired from the post of Assistant Director of Intelligence for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He believes the current capabilities of most governments is not enough to counter the current cyber threats. He said that cyber threats were fundamentally undermining Canada’s “future prosperity as a nation.” He stated there is a lack of response on three levels. First from government and corporate policy-makers who do not, in his opinion, understand the technical complexities of digital telecommunications security. Second the government has not invested enough to protect Canada’s communications and electricity systems from cyber attacks. Third, he thought there was an inherent corporate shortsightedness regarding protecting Canada’s communications infrastructure.

The cyber issue is growing and will become a rising threat to governments and corporations. It may require a serious attack such as a massive electricity system shut down before a full government response is played out.

Alfred Rolington is the author of Strategic Intelligence for the 21st Century: The Mosaic Method, an industry insider’s assessment of current intelligence methods and offers a new strategic model, directed toward the police, military, and intelligence agencies. He was formerly CEO of Jane’s Information Group, responsible for such publications as Jane’s Defense Review and Jane’s Police Review, as well as CEO for Oxford Analytica. He has over thirty years’ experience of analytical publishing and media companies, producing information and intelligence for commerce, law enforcement, the, military and government. He has written about and given lectures on intelligence and strategic planning to Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard Universities, and to organisations such as Thomson Reuters, the CIA, SIS (MI6), NATO Headquarters, and GCHQ.

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Image credits: Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Ryan Allshouse uses the intrusion detection system to monitor unclassified network activity from the automated data processing workspace. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons;  Maps and charts are scanned from “Atlas of the Middle East”, published in January 1993 by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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By Mark Peters

Twitter is a joke factory, where professional comics and civilian jesters crank out one-liners round the clock.

In that joke factory, there are popular models. Every day, new jokes play on phrases such as “Dance like no one is watching,” “Sex is like pizza,” and “When life hands you lemons.” While the repetition can be maddening, I’m impressed by how, inevitably, there’s always another good joke lurking in even the most tired formula. “Give a man a fish” variations are endless, but there’s always a fresh catch, like this tweet by Erikka Innes:

Some formulas are seasonal. The arrival of 2013 brings variations of a formula I presume originated as a simple observation: “It’s X year, but I’m still writing X-1 year on my checks.” Some use the snowclone-like formula to point out its own exhaustion:

People write these kind of tweets about every joke formula, so I’d say pointing out hackiness has become its own form of hackery. Another option is using this format to comment on how checks have mostly gone the way of dinosaurs. This was a popular theme this year:

When jokesters move beyond the world of checks by replacing the word check, the humor gets more humorous:

Others keep the check part and replace 2012. In some cases, the subject matter stays close to the world of money, usually implying the tweeter is broke or a deadbeat:

Sometimes 2012 gets replaced with something a lot more creative:

A double replacement adds more possibilities:

And there’s plenty of room for absurd silliness, intriguing questions, and wordplay galore:

Love it or loathe it, this joke format will likely survive as long as we have years. Even in 3013, I bet we’ll still be writing “Please have sex with me” into the programming of our robots.

Mark Peters is a lexicographer, humorist, rabid tweeter, and language columnist for Visual Thesaurus. He also writes Lost Batman Tales. Read his previous OUPblog posts.

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By Richard Susskind

The uncharitable might say that I write the same book every four years or so. Some critics certainly accuse me of having said the same thing for many years. I don’t disagree. Since the early 80s, my enduring interest has been in the ways in which technology can modernize and improve the work of the legal profession and the courts. My main underpinning conviction has indeed not changed: that legal work is document and information intensive, and that a whole host of information technologies can and should streamline and sometimes even overhaul traditional methods of practicing law and administering justice.

What have changed, of course, are the enabling technologies. When I started out on what has become a career devoted largely to legal technology, the web had not been invented, nor had tablets, handheld devices, mobile phones, and much else. As new technologies emerge, therefore, I always have a new story to tell and more evidence that suggests the legal world is shifting from being a cottage industry to an IT-enabled information sector.

The evolution of my thinking reflects my own technical interests and career activities over the years. My first work in the field, in the 1980s, focused on artificial intelligence and its potential and limitations in the law. This began in earnest with my doctoral research at Oxford University. I was interested in the possibility of developing computer systems that could solve legal problems and offer legal advice. Many specialists at the time wanted to define expert systems in law in architectural terms (by reference to what underlying technologies were being used, from rule-based systems to neural networks). I took a more pragmatic view and described these systems functionally as computer applications that sought to make scarce legal knowledge and expertise more widely available and easily accessible.

This remains my fundamental aspiration today. I believe there is enormous scope for using technology, especially Internet technology, as a way of providing affordable, practical legal guidance to non-lawyers, especially those who are not able to pay for conventional legal service. These systems may not be expert systems, architecturally-defined. Instead, they are web-based resources (such as online advisory and document drafting systems) and are delivering legal help, on-screen, as envisaged back in the 1980s.

During the first half of the 90s, while I was working in a law firm (Masons, now Pinsent Masons), my work became less academic. I was bowled over by the web and began to form a view of the way it would revolutionize the communication habits of practicing lawyers and transform the information seeking practices of the legal fraternity. I also had some rudimentary ideas about online communities of lawyers and clients; we now call these social networks. My thinking came together in the mid-1990s. I became clear, in my own mind at least, that information technology would definitely challenge and change the world of law. Most people thought I was nuts.

A few years later, to help put my ideas into practice, I developed what I called ‘the grid’ – a simple model that explained the inter-relationships of legal data, legal information, legal knowledge, as found within law firms and shared with clients. I had used this model quite a bit with my clients (by this time, I was working independently) and it seemed to help lawyers think through what they should be doing about IT.

In the years that followed, however, I became even more confident that the Internet was destined to change the legal sector not incrementally and peripherally but radically, pervasively, and irreversibly. But I felt that, in the early 2000s, most lawyers were complacent. Times were good, business was brisk, and the majority of practitioners could not really imagine that legal practice and the court system would be thrown into upheaval by disruptive technologies.

Then came the global recession and, in turn, lawyers became more receptive than they had been in boom times when there had been no obvious reason why they might change course. Dreadful economic conditions convinced lawyers that tomorrow would look little like yesterday.

With many senior lawyers now recognizing that we are on the brink of major change, my current preoccupation is that most law schools around the world are ignoring this future. They continue to teach law much as I was taught in the late 1970s. They are equipping tomorrow’s lawyers to be twentieth century not twenty-first century lawyers. My mission now is to help law teachers to prepare the next generation of lawyers for the new legal world.

Richard Susskind OBE is an author, speaker, and independent adviser to international professional firms and national governments. He is president of the Society for Computers and law IT adviser to the lord chief justice. Tomorrow’s Lawyers is his eighth book.

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Image Credit: ‘The Grid’ courtesy of Richard Susskind. Used with permission. Do not reproduce without explicit permission of Richard Susskind.

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A  Eurotherm nanodac recorder/controller by Eurothermaustralia.com.au is made to assemble video recording and PID control within a unit. 

The compact nanodac device featuring high-quality full-colour display brings recording and control together, effectively combining control capabilities and also signal acquisition, display and recording functions inside the same box. 

Developed by Invensys Eurotherm, the nanodac controller/recorder offers several benefits to industrial equipment manufacturers including a compact size and unified design. Its front panel of 96mm x 96mm (1/4 DIN) and depth of 90mm meets the strain of kit manufacturers who seek compact hardware to lessen the size of their cabinets or machines. 

The single unified design also reduces engineering and integration costs with merely one product to get installed and something wiring diagram to get picked. Stock control and maintenance is also simplified since the nanodac device is out of stock in a number of models or with optional features. 

Available in a recorder version as well as a recorder/controller version, users can get the recorder unit and add some control functionality at the later stage. 

The

Eurotherm nanodac controller/recorder features four universal input channels including thermocouple, resistance temperature detector, current and voltage. It is usually possible process the data at night four input values and perform calculations in a variety of methods to obtain 14 virtual channels. 

An individual chooses the precise values to show along with their format: trend lines running horizontally or vertically, horizontal or vertical bar graphs, numerical values, alarm statuses and control loops. This gives the person to monitor trends in a gaggle of six chosen variables about the 3.5&rdquo TFT colour display screen.

Initially, a Process Controller used to become a traditional creation that was used for governing the varied processes occurring in the industrial plant. An Electronic Controller can be a segment of control theory utilizing digital computers becoming system controller. Digital temperature controller has found widespread use in the operation control industry for specific processes, which encompasses several industries related to the manufacturing processes, for example, chemicals, sugar, cement, iron and steel.

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A weekly short list of tweets that librarians and the teens that they serve may find interesting.

Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between January 25 and January 31 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the Week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.


[View the story "YALSAblog Tweets of the Week - January 25, 2013" on Storify]

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Yesterday, I was searching for a website I used last year to create an online button/logo and couldn't for the life of me remember what it was.  So I used the good ole standby website Delicious.  And I was virtually slapped in the face....

There used to be a time when I was excited about the newest and best out there, using the programs and huge creativity of people's minds to share web 2.0 content and how it could be utilized.  But then the inevitable happened - I began to focus on what could be used in the classroom and library and the edges got blurry.  No longer did I need to know more, I needed to use more of what I already knew!

And the pool of web content and tools for the classroom began to grow stagnant.  It was a slow and gradual process until I looked down one day and saw the green and realized I needed some chlorine....fast!  My Delicious pool is getting green!!

So, what are those websites I focused on to create that stagnancy?  You know them....Prezi, Animoto, Voicethread, Glogster, Wix, Weebly.  The bookends of excellent educational technology, as well they should be.  They've earned the right to be there.  But what do I have between those bookends that I can pull from and train, teach and expand student engagement and teacher knowledge? 

So I went  to get the best of the best for web tools, and here are some sites I'll be using that showcase those sites on the cusp of grandeur:

AASL Top Twenty Five Best Websites:
http://www.ala.org/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsitestop25

Larry Ferlazzo's Best Web Apps in 2012:
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2012/07/10/the-best-web-2-0-applications-for-education-in-2012-%E2%80%94-so-far/

Digital Goonies: Creative, outside of the box thinkers on web tools:
http://digitalgoonies.com/

I need to fill in the bookends with new ideas and technologies to pull, learn and teach the campus I work with so I don't have to sit and watch the millionth Animoto or the two millionth Prezi....know what I mean?

And thank you Kristin Fontinchiaro for reminding me:  It's about focus and balance, not about creativity and a project done.  Educational technology should showcase the learning, not the product.

Sites I'm really enjoying right now?  Tripline, Symbaloo, Jux, Haiku Deck....:)
And yeah, I'm reading some good YA novels too!! 

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A weekly short list of tweets that librarians and the teens that they serve may find interesting.

Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between November 30 and December 6 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the Week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.

[View the story "YALSAblog Tweets of the Week - November 30, 2012" on Storify]

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IT support London, or IT Support in general expands to Information Technology support and that precisely means technical support provided for computer and related technologies. It refers to the array of services that an organization offers to provide assistance to the users and companies using various forms of technology which include smart mobile phones, televisions, computers, different software products and applications and other electronic gadgets etc.

The different services that comprise a range of IT support involve technical solutions to specific issues and problems in usage of software products or applications and also include the rectification of technical glitches, if any. Also, there are few companies that provide technical assistance for the products or gadgets they sell which also comes under IT support as well. These services are mostly provided for a charge or sometimes even free of cost. There are various ways of these support providing organizations to action and thus technical assistance can be provided to you through telephonic guidance or online or even personnel visits etc. Also they generally have several options available to you for you to log in your complaint calls so that it can be addressed and processed by these organizations in due time. However large companies and organizations do have their own IT support department to help with their internal computer, local network, internet and multiple software and application issues and glitches that do or may come up generally regularly.
IT support in London offers many options too for you to get some help from if you are stuck with any technical issue or product. They provide you with remote assistance and support services as well as dedicated personalized guidance too as per your need and nature of the snag. Few things which you should keep in mind while choosing an organization out of the long list of IT support in London are that they should have a quick response time and be equally efficient and also offer you a cost effective package alongside. As the expenses behind maintenance of your technology, server downtime, and other regular mini and micro technical issues may take up a lot of your regular budget as a company.

IT support Westminster in London is a complete industry in itself and there are thousands of people working their days and nights to keep your work undisrupted from any kind of technical obstacles. You can contact these technical support organizations if you require any help regarding Server and network monitoring, Backup recovery including online backup recovery, Disaster recovery, Email management and services and Cloud services, and also General IT support and IT consultation etc.

Hence, choose your service provider after evaluating their performance and technical expertise and hopefully you will never be stuck at work due to any kind of technical or technological problem with a proactive, qualified and well experienced people as a part of IT support in London.

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A couple weeks ago it came to my attention that one of our readers wasn’t seeing Two Writing Teachers pop up in her Facebook News Feed.  That prompted me to check our stats,… Read More →

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The Knitting Machines.
Michael Sedano


In my mother’s familia, all girls learned to amasar, make chile in a molcahete, and crochet. Such skills helped define a person’s womanly competence in her generation.

Are her tortillas round, thin, and even? How fast can she produce tortillas for a table of hungry eaters who don’t use forks? 
Is the chile she makes chiloso and sabroso with just the right amount of everything?
Can she make anything other than a doily?

Including my mom, all the women in the family made great tortillas de harina. Aunt Stella is hands-down the best chile maker on both sides of the family. Stella's salsa makes gente sweat, wipe their eyes, fan their mouth, then ask for more.

My grandmothers weren't really into doilies, though they had them. As a result, mom didn’t find crocheting as engaging as knitting and quilting. Indeed, over the years my mom took night school and private classes, she bought books, acquired tools, yarns, quilting fabric, and myriad equipment for sewing and knitting.

As her arthritis worsened, a lifelong experimental attitude led her to automation: store-bought instead of the palo; a blender to make chile; and finally, she bought a knitting machine. Then another, then another, taking the classic good-better-best route. Her third knitting machine is a home-based loom out of the industrial revolution, a punchcard-driven, motorized, knitting machine.

She enjoyed two sewing rooms. One for the three knitting machines plus her Singer Slant-O-Matic 403, another for her quilting sewing machines, tools, boxes of fabric, and racks of yarn overstock from the knitting room. And it gets better.


RTFM; my mom invented the idea. There’s nothing you can’t learn on your own, and with the right tools you can do anything; that’s where I get those attitudes. I have all the manuals and tech sheets for the equipment, plus textbooks, handwritten notes on needle counts and machine settings, and punch cards galore.

What am I going to do with these old knitting machines, yarns, and equipment?


I offered the stuff to Homeboy Industries and the Home of Neighborly Service in San Bernardino. Homeboy/Homegirl doesn't do textiles. The Home organization has a sewing program—mostly quilts. I haven’t been able to finalize the Home's pickup of the yarns, fabrics, books, and machines. I suspect they depend on spirit and good intentions more than organization and planning, so I need Plan B if they don’t pick up the stuff before I sell the old homestead.

La Bloga readers are Plan B. Who knows an organization—any organized group of people with or without papers—who want their gente to learn to set up and use knitting machines? And if the machines fail, use the yarn and textiles to fashion quilts, crochet, and knit?

The whole kit and kaboodle are free to anyone, FOB Redlands California.


On-Line Floricanto Strikes Solstice Chord

Last Tuesday, La Bloga teamed with Poets Responding to SB 1070 to sponsor an On-Line Floricanto for the Wiinter Solstice. Francisco Alarcón, who founded the Facebook community of seven thousand poets and readers, wrote an expository introduction explaining the Mayan calendar counting system and correcting the wildly incorrect conclusion the world was ending. ¡Hijole!, some people.

The nine poets selected by the Moderators and Alarcón for last week's Floricanto For the Approaching Solstice captivated La Bloga friend Vanessa Acosta, of Cultural Arts Tours & Workshops. Vanessa emailed details of how Floricanto For the Approaching Solstice led to a wonderful evening of friends, food, and reading poetry aloud.


Vanessa printed out the eleven poems for each guest to choose a reading. “A Brazilian guitar player Roberto, came and played impromtu as each of us picked a poem and read it. I did the first Spanish version and Lupe Vela followed it in English. Then I read the Bios of each of the authors you so graciously listed before I introduced the reader who was interpreting the poem.

Everyone was nervous, but once we ate dinner, drank lots of wine, we were all ready to read the beautiful poetry out loud.  We all became performers last night. The guitarist in the background set the mood for each poem.

Monica Valencia made a beautiful vegan pumpkin cheese cake with a chocolate Mayan symbol that was delicioso. Before we began our poetry reading, I saged everyone.

La Bloga really inspired me into having this event at the last minute. I think this is so important to have and I thank you for giving yourself to this wonderful work. Mil gracias for giving all of us your gift of sharing books, poems, literature and introducing us to the wonderful writers who contribute to La Bloga. Happy December 21-22 Winter Solstice - welcome to el Sexto Sol!

Amelia ML Montes with an array of Alma Lopez' images.

Amelia ML Montes and Kathy Más Gallegos before Yreina Cervantez' portrait (NFS).

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 130,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that [...]

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I’m en route to Seattle even as I type this! What will the board and I be up to at the 2013 Midwinter conference? Keep reading to find out.

It’s going to be an awesome conference. We’ve got programs, meetings and activities everywhere. We’ll be talking about advocacy, collaborations, books and reading, the future of teen services in libraries and more.

First, I’ll be helping YALSA host the first National Forum on Teens & Libraries on January 23 and 24. This is the first summit of its kind, and we’ll be bringing leaders on youth development, libraries, technology, publishing, everything. The goal is figure out where teen services is going and where it needs to be in the 21st Century. ALA President Maureen Sullivan will be the lead moderator, and we’ve got some amazing special guest stars, including Lee Rainey, head of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Mizuko Ito, Professor in Residence and MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning at the University of California, Irvine, Renee Hobbs, Director of the Harrington School of Communications & Media at the University of Rhode Island and George Needham, Vice President for Global and Regional Councils at the Online Computer Library Center. We’ll be talking lots of teens, literacy, library, technology and more. I’ll even be leading the Youth Panel portion of the forum with special awesome teens from YALSA President-Elect Shannon Peterson. We’ll be tweeting, blogging and posting the entire time, so check out our social media channels to find out what’s going on.

The YALSA Executive Committee will also be meeting with the executive committees of our sister divisions, AASL and ALSC. The three divisions traditionally meet every Thursday before Midwinter and Annual conferences. This time we’ll be talking about our Joint School/Public Library committee, a new Common Core taskforce and a whole lot more.

The YALSA Board will also be pretty busy this conference. Not only will you see us at Leadership Development (coffee and carbs!!!) and the YALSA Happy Hour (free drinks and apps!!!) on Saturday, feel free to drop by our meetings from 1:30-5:30 on Saturday, 4:30-5:30 on Sunday and 1:30-3:30 on Monday, all in room 309 of the convention center. You’ll also see us at the Youth Media Awards and the Morris and Non-Fiction awards ceremony on Monday.

What will the Board be talking about? Lots of stuff. In thinking about how YALSA can help its members advocate for teen services in libraries, the Board will be having a major discussion on how to reach library administrators to help them understand the importance of teen services.

We also know that members want to learn more about teen programming in libraries. So we’ll be voting to establish a new taskforce of programming best practices and replicable program examples for members. Interested in serving on the taskforce? Hit me up after Midwinter!

We also know how much everyone loves our biennial YA Lit Symposium. In fact, we know ya’ll love it so much that we’re going to be considering whether or not we should do it every year as opposed to every other year. Got an opinion? Let us know what you think.

Also back by popular demand is the YALSA Road Trip. We know from the member survey and from my virtual town halls that members really want to find better ways to connect to one another on a regional or state-by-state basis. The board will be brainstorming new ways that YALSA can reboot this exciting project.

We’ll also be exploring lots of other new ways for members to connect with one another, both virtually and in-person. We’ll be talking about a new student chapter proposal as well as a cool new idea on how members who love teen books can better connect with one another.

Finally, we’ll be at the Coffee with the Candidates, which is a great opportunity for members to meet this year’s candidates for President-Elect as well as the Board. This is your chance to get up close and personal with the candidates and let them know your concerns and ideas. I know I’ll be there with plenty of questions of my own.

All in all, it’s gonna be a super busy conference, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there. I’ll be the guy with the crazy socks. Over and out. See you there.

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