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Just One More Book!! is one of the ALSC Great Web Sites for Kids, filed under Literature & Languages’ Favorite Children’s Stories category. Advertising- and sponsorship-free, Just One More Book!! (JOMB) is a podcast powered by passion. Mark and Andrea, a husband and wife team, both work full-time jobs and squeeze in a recording session during their morning coffee ritual after dropping their eight-year-old and six-year-old daughters off at school and before heading to work themselves. They publish four shows a week: Mondays being interviews; Wednesdays and Fridays are book chats; Saturday’s content varies.

During their conversation for this approximately 15-minute podcast, Andrea and Mark answer my questions. Mentioned are:

1. Podcasters Across Borders
2. Kidlitosphere Conference
3. Dennis Lee, poet
4. JOMB’s interview with Henry Winkler
5. JOMB’s Interview with Simon James
6. Stuart McLean, storyteller

Episode 2

Just One More Book!!

I just started the “Snapple Real Facts Buster” wiki a couple of weeks ago and lo and behold, you can find our site by searching “snapple real facts” on google already.  If you search “snapple real facts” wiki, then we are the first on the results list.  I just sent a mass email to all the 4th graders and hopefully, they will find this an exciting turn of events.  (I really wasn’t expecting google spidering us so quickly!)

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free ;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

–The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Samuel Coleridge)

What a year it’s been for the Great Interactive Software for Kids Committee.  The Samuel Coleridge poem above calls to mind the pioneering spirit of the committee members who served along with me 2007 to 2008.  Kirsten Freeman-Benson, Anna Healy, Angelique Kopa, Jane Ritter and Becky White could all be called brave mariners for the trials and tribulations we went through to get our committee work done. 

There were so many firsts this year I can hardly name them all.  We wrote articles and campaigned to be known to the outside world.  Thanks to the ALSC Board’s motion to approve last year, we had a ticket to sail, to “burst” into the sea of electronic media.  We went from evaluating PC-CD ROMs to evaluating multiple platforms like the Leap Frog Console, DS/Wii and Xbox360 and somehow we ended up on the virtual planet of Second Life discussing software in Cybrary City.  We reached heights we never thought were possible, all in a year’s time. 

I wish I could be on this committee forever…I have never felt so passionate about something I’ve worked on as GISK.  I cannot begin to articulate how much being the chair of this committee has stretched my mind, increased my opportunities for learning and ENLIGHTENED me.  It’s bittersweet that I must announce that I will be rotating off the committee as chair in March due to family obligations.  But I have faith and hope our work will continue to serve the ALSC membership and our audience of school libraries, public libraries, parents and their children, even without my presence. 

I congratulate Angelique Kopa, a worthy successor and the incoming chair to the committee–I wish her the very best and am confident that the committee’s fate is in capable hands.  My fellow committee members are knowledgeable and tenacious and I am so fortunate to have worked along side each and everyone one of them.  Thank you for your hard work.  I told you to ”be the miracle” and you were! 

There is still so much to do.  There are so many learning opportunities, so many worlds to explore, so little time and we’ve only scratched the surface.  I learned that there was such a thing as videogame literacy and that vendors actually listened to our argument that there was educational value in the games they produced, if you deeply believed and showed your sincerity.  It was sheer will from the six of us that shook the videogame industry into recognizing ALSC and recognizing the GISK committee.  And when it rained, it poured–we had over 85 submissions.  Now that we’ve broken out onto the waves, it should be smooth sailing from here on out. 

Technology continues to be profound and ever-changing and we emerge victorious only if we stay abreast with the new developments.  In the 11th hour, we allied ourselves with Dr. Scott Nicholson of Syracuse University’s School of Information Science and his Games and Gaming Member Initiative Group which unites all gaming groups within ALA.  I am confident that our committee will  continue to represent ALSC in the technological world in the best way possible and make the Board proud.  Thank you all, very much.  It’s been a pleasure…

Signing off as chair,

Ann Crewdson

A wiki is a website which allows people to add and edit content collectively. Several ALSC committees (including the Children and Technology Committee, the Legislation Committee, and the National Planning of Special Collections) are taking advantage of the ALSC Wiki. This resource is an excellent place for members to do committee work, to share best practices and to network.

FYI-

Here’s some news from Second Life.  This might be of interest to you!

Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education and Museums Conference

Join us in Second Life on March 8 for a conference on virtual worlds
and libraries, education and museums!  The purpose of this conference
is to provide a gathering place for librarians, information
professionals, educators, museologists, and others to learn about and
discuss the educational, informational, and cultural opportunities of
virtual worlds. The conference will be held at the lovely New Media

Consortium Conference Center.  There will be a variety of presentations to attend
including keynote programs by Kitty Pope, Executive Director of the
Alliance Library System, Barbara Galik, Director of the Cullom-Davis
Library at Bradley University, Doug McDavid from IBM, and Christy
Confetti Higgins from Sun. For more information on and to register for
the conference, visit the conference website at
http://www.alliancelibraries.info/virtualworlds/

The conference is organized by Alliance Library System, TAP
Information Services, IBM, and Sun.  For more information on attending
or presenting, contact Lori Bell at Alliance Library System at
[email protected] or Tom Peters at
[email protected]

We are still accepting proposals for the conference until February 11 and the

conference program will be available sometime the week of February 12.

Lori Bell
Director of Innovation
Alliance Library System
600 High Point Lane
East Peoria, IL 61611
(309)694-9200 ext. 2128
[email protected]

Technology plays an important part in your role as a children’s librarian, school library media specialist, or other stakeholder in providing quality library service to children. Do you feel the need for easy access to updates and information about cutting-edge technology and its use with the kids you serve?

The ALSC Children and Technology Committee needs your input. Please complete the brief survey we have created for you. The survey will be available until Saturday, March 1, 2008.

Thank you!

Christopher J. Borawski, MSI
Chair, ALSC Children and Technology Committee

Friday, January 25, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, 10:00 Central,
9:00 Mountain, 8:00 Pacific, and 5:00 p.m. GMT/UTC/Zulu:

Friday, January 25, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 2:00 Central, 1:00
Mountain, noon Pacific, and 8:00 p.m. GMT/UTC/Zulu:
lds for Kids, Tweens, and Teens: Whyville

According to a recent New York Times article, 2008 will be the year of
virtual worlds for kids, with rapid population growth and many
ventures. Libraries and other educational and cultural organizations
are exploring these virtual worlds for kids, too. This hour long
seminar will feature speakers Tom Peters of TAP Information Services
providing an overview of the growth of virtual worlds for kids, Cliff
Zintgraff of Whyville providing an introduction and tour of Whyville,
and Kelly Czarnecki of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg
County talking about why it is important for librarians and educators
to be in virtual worlds such as Whyville.

To participate go to the OPAL Online Auditorium at
http://www.conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs1641902f62b4

New users will need to download a small software applet before
entering the room.

For more information contact Lori Bell at
[email protected] or Tom Peters at
[email protected]

–
Lori Bell
Director of Innovation
Alliance Library System
600 High Point Lane
East Peoria, IL 61611
(309)694-9200 ext. 2128
skype: lbell927
[email protected]
[email protected]

Ever wonder how to build your own objects or modify those you have?

Join the ELVEN Institute as we look at the basics of building. This workshop will show how to create a simple object, modify it, take it back into your inventory, and then make more copies of it in the world.  As a concrete focus, we will each build a couch, which will be a single prim: a tinted, translucent, textured, profile-cut torus.

The text chat based instruction will be supplemented by a series of in-world dynamic exhibits that show the user interface methods required to perform each step of couch building.  The intention will be for people to observe the simulations, and then duplicate the steps using their own user interface.   These simulations will provide us with a shared perception that will be the basis for questions and comments.

All ELVEN workshops offer personal guidance in a small group setting with other educators.  Come increase you SL knowledge and meet other SL-using educators!

Join us Saturday morning, February 2nd, from 8 to 10 am SLT.  Please register now at http://elveninstitute.org/workshops.html. 

For more information, contact Dewey Jung in world or via email at [email protected]

—–

Craig A. Cunningham, Ph.D.

Associate Professor 

National College of Education

National-Louis University

122 S. Michigan Avenue

Chicago IL 60603

1-312-261-3605

[email protected]

http://craigcunningham.com

—————————————————

It’s about lighting a fire, not filling a bucket!

Shortly after reading on our blog Bradley Debrick’s post about tagging, I read Matt Raymond’s post on the Library of Congress blog about the Library’s pilot project with Flickr, an online photosharing site. The Library of Congress is posting photographs which no copyright is known to exist and asking people to comment, make notes, and add tags. Matt Raymond shortly afterward shared how well-received that partnership has been thus far.

I am excited about the project and believe its potential for students of all ages is incredible. The Library of Congress’ Flickr profile page states:

We’ve been acquiring photos since the mid-1800s when photography was the hot new technology. Because images represent life and the world so vividly, people have long enjoyed exploring our visual collections. Looking at pictures opens new windows to understanding both the past and the present. Favorite photos are often incorporated in books, TV shows, homework assignments, scholarly articles, family histories, and much more.

The Prints & Photographs Division takes care of 14 million of the Library’s pictures and features more than 1 million through online catalogs. Offering historical photo collections through Flickr is a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images more widely.

Are there ways you envision using this project with young people?

by Becki Bishop, co-chair ALSC Great Web Sites Committee

The Great Web Sites for Kids Committee is responsible for maintaining the ALSC Great Web Sites for Kids web page. The committee participates in three periods of web site evaluation for newly suggested sites and updates/reevaluates any sites already listed.

Sites suggested for inclusion are evaluated according to their author/sponsor, purpose, design and stability, and content. The committee seeks quality sites for children ages birth to 14, as well as sites relevant to parents, caregivers, teachers, and others who work with children. The Great Web Sites web page is organized by subject matter.

In 2007, the committee evaluated over 400 sites in the three rounds of voting. Each round consists of a pre-vote, final vote, and annotation writing. In the pre-vote, sites recommended since the previous vote are divided among committee members. These sites are evaluated to determine if they should be presented in the final vote for all members to consider. The final vote consists of all members reviewing the sites forwarded from the pre-vote, as well as at least three sites suggested by each member of the committee (these are automatically included in the final vote). Web sites are added if they receive support from at least 80% of the committee. Then, the new sites are divided up among members so that annotations can be written, and the sites are added to the Great Web Sites page.

It is very important for this committee that all members try to keep on schedule as much as possible. It is difficult to catch up when work gets behind due to the volume of sites that are evaluated. It is very interesting to see the diversity of sites recommended, and you never know what gems may be uncovered in the mine we call the World Wide Web.

On Monday, December 17, Nerdfighters took over YouTube.

Ok, first you might ask, what is a Nerdfighter? According to John Green, author of Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, and one half of Brotherhood 2.0 , a Nerdfighter Is like a regular person, only instead of being made of bones and things, a Nerdfighter is made of awesome. Nerdfighters are people who tend to like books, make friends online with other people who like books (there’s a lot of Harry Potter Nerdfighters) , and I was personally introduced to the Brotherhood with this video from July 18:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvvFiZyEyTA

So, what does all this mean? If you become engrossed in watching the Brotherhood Vlog, you’ll see challenges and secret projects. But the biggest and best Secret Project happened on December 17. The plan was simple: Nerdfighters would take over YouTube by posting videos that featured the same center screenshot and by commenting and rating en masse. Brother Hank orchestrated an e-mail sign up list and then sent out instructions for the ones posting videos as well as those who were to help by watching, commenting, and rating. And guess what - -it worked! For nearly 24 hours, the most discussed and most rated videos on YouTube did not feature large breasted women or Britney Spears news, they were all videos with the same center screen and they all promoted a charity. And several of those charities were libraries and book charities such as First Book or Reading is Fundamental.

My video was for First Book. You can watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtRqViFmcHA

When I got home from work (many people reportedly took the day off work or skipped school to do this project) I got online and started watching. Imagine my surprise when I saw another First Book (and libraries) video. I watched it immediately, and was even more surprised when I saw Ann Crewdson on it! Some of you may recognize Ann’s name from this blog. Anyhow—here’s that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb35Qkb8weQ

This video got over 33,000 views, 1074 ratings, and over 2400 comments, making it one of the hottest vids of the day!

 So, the project worked. It was a testament to the power of a group of dedicated people. I was so impressed with the videos that young people posted. The young Nerdfighters are an amazing gang of kids. (The older ones rock, too.) If you want to see the official explanation video, I’ll link to that too. Check out the responses to that video for more awesomeness. You’ll never lack for a charity to give to again. Go Nerdfighters! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQQOeT6ld3A

In one of my first posts to the ALSC Blog, I mentioned sharing professional reading. Since then, I have toyed with ways to do this. While I am uncertain LibraryThing is our best option, I thought we could give it a go, at least for the first 200 books, the limit to maintain a free membership.

I created an account for ALSC Blog and have added a link to that account on the bottom of the sidebar on the ALSC Blog’s home page. The January book to be discussed/shared is The Family-Centered Library Handbook by Sandra Feinberg et al. The book for February will be A Crash Course in Children’s Services by Penny Peck as suggested by ALSC Blog reader, Tina. I will add that title to the ALSC Blog’s Library Thing account after I post about The Family-Centered Library Handbook.

I invite you to recommend titles to this professional reading list by either commenting here or emailing [email protected]. If you have other ideas of ways to do this, please share those as well. Thanks!

I was so excited when my article, “Discover Babylon: E-Learning Power on Second Life” came out in the November 2007 issue of School Library Journal, I couldn’t wait to share it with my mother.  My mother who is a non-native english speaker who immigrated from Taiwan and doesn’t have more than a 6th grade education in chinese was so proud of me but didn’t understand a word that was on the page.  I was really happy that my first magazine article would be celebrated by my mom but equally frustrated that the language and educational barriers prevented her from understanding the merits of the article. 

The second level of frustration comes from the fact that many of my colleagues do not understand what I have written despite the meticulous nature in which I approached the article with incessant phone calls to the Federation of American Scientists for clarification, consultation with a local psychologist I know and emailing to friends to verify that my writing could be understood at the most basic of levels.  And it is through no fault of my colleagues that the language to describe Second Life is still in its primordial stage, leaving a language and cultural barrier between those who have a presence in Second Life and those who don’t.

Communication:

The frustrations really underscore the “disconnect” between people who understand Second Life and those who’ve never even heard of it.  Not only are there divides between those who are educated and those who are not, but there are divides between those who are technically savvy and those who are not and the role-players and the real-lifers.  No wonder those who are denizens of Second Life are weary about teaching newbies the basics.   It’s analogous to helping a patron who comes into the library whose second language is english but has never touched a computer in her life, demanding to use Rosetta Stone fluently.  And the newbies are weary about taking lessons from avatars.  How do you take lessons seriously when the teacher standing before you looks like a dragon and lectures in a Carl Sagan voice? We tell ourselves it’s otherworldly–the stuff for “Star-Trek” fanatics and not for “normal” people.

Semantics:

You say first-life, I say real-life.  You say in-world, I say in-game.  Game, serious, world, platform–let’s call the whole thing off…

It’s very hard to even start an intelligent conversation about Second Life because at present, the discursive language is constantly being invented and reinvented.  The MacArthur Foundation in their conference talked about how innovations are happening at such a rapid pace between multiple disciplines in virtual planets eg: Second Life, that there hasn’t been time to describe what is happening.  The language can’t keep up.  And as you can plainly see from my above phrase, people are still in disagreement about the terms used to describe the transactions in Second Life.  For instance, I would distinguish the differences between the term first-life and real-life because my first-life was Asheron’s Call (MMORPG), before Second Life was invented and my real-life is my physical life that I live right now as a children’s librarian in the King County Library System.  Those in Second Life, whom have never touched a MUVE before Second Life, would equate their first lives with their real lives.  And no one outside of Second Life understands jargon like “grid, rez, prims and terraforming.”

Education and Non-profits:

 It’s important to have educators, librarians and public, non-profit entities in Second Life so that marketers and commercial companies don’t dominate and influence the education emanating from virtual planets.  It’s important to have virtual planets as a tool for kids that teaches innovation.  Innovative teaching is very hard to do in the traditional classroom.  Take a look at this video of What Are Kids Learning in Virtual Worlds? which was a conference that took place at the University of Southern California on November 14th, 2007.  Put away all doubts that ALSC shouldn’t have a presence on Second Life.  600 librarians on Second Life couldn’t be wrong:  http://takeonedigital.blip.tv/file/488039/

 Being someone who is able to see both sides of the equation, having one foot in Second Life and the other Real Life, I am able to pinpoint the exact place where the real and second worlds collide.  For those staunchly rooted in real life, we have a hard time reconciling what’s tangible with the abstract, what’s theoretical and what’s already being practiced.  Furthermore, Second Life really tests our psyche and takes us to the limit of what is acceptable, unacceptable, sane and insane.  To our familiar mind, there’s something disturbing about shopping for eyeballs or taking classes from a furry wolf avatar.  We see with our lens of perception so ingrained by the society we’ve grown up in that it’s hard to be forgiving of avatars who are strange.  Consider the anti-furry avatar movement happening in Second Life which is blatant racist discrimination against avatars with furry characteristics–picketed demonstrations and islands that explicity state, no large non-human avatars allowed have been documented.

To those who’ve never touched an MUVE, it’s hard to see what’s so great about it.  They see it on a superficial level like the game, The SIMs.  Why would you want to play taking out the trash and washing the dishes when you can do that in real-life? For those in Second Life, the esoteric language, the thrill of the new technological frontier, social networking, explosion of creativity, the innovations are so amazing that it’s hard to fathom why people wouldn’t understand the importance of doing work on virtual planets.  From ignorance and misunderstanding prejudice is born.

Prejudices: 

 It’s important to go into Second Life with an open mind and not be afraid to have new experiences that are “alien” to us.  It’s important to take things at face-value and not project characteristics onto the avatars standing before you, not knowing the person in real-life.  In the short time I’ve been on Second Life, I’ve come a long ways from the vigilante attitude I carried into it as the “pillar of truth” to just taking it one day at a time and not assuming too much.  Maybe that avatar who bumped into you on Orientation Island wasn’t doing it to be spiteful but a vigilante himself.  He wants to rid the virtual planet of “zombies” or gold farmers who exploit a region for traffic.  Maybe that Harry Potter avatar who was speaking gibberish to you when you landed in Korea town was not trying to spook you but trying out a Linguiphile plug-in in Second Life chat to translate English into Korean.  Maybe throwing virtual stones like a zealot at the group called Babylonian Whores isn’t such a good idea because you take on the very griefer mentality you despise in other people.  And real-lifers, it’s important not to do the name-calling as described in Suzanne Delong’s article, “Nix the Name-Calling” from the October 2007 issue of American Libraries. 

If we take a good look at ourselves, we are all still people from the same human race–Baby-Boomers, Generation Xers, Millenials, Ys and Avatars.  Yes, let’s be polite and not call people “freaks” or “old fogies.”  It’s a misconception that older people are not on Second Life–after all, they have more time to spend on virtual planets than the average middle-aged person if they’re retired.  People playing Second Life are often told to get a life or named the ones who drunk from the “kool-aid.” It’s rude and uncalled for. Take it from someone who’ve drunk from the “koolaid.”  I’m still the person I was yesterday, performing story times for youngsters 1 to 2 years old at the library, except with that much more knowledge, enlightened by my virtual planet experience.

I attended the workshop Saturday morning conducted by the ELVEN (Educators and Librarians in Virtual Environments) Institute in Second Life and it was tres excellent! Thanks to Teresa Walls and Kelly Czarnecki for the headsup, I went to their website and filled out a form that asked me to rate my interests from 1-4 from navigation, communication, clothing and shopping, use of SL for preK-12 education, to use of SL for teacher education.  Dewey Jung, Puglet Dancer and the team of ELVEN assistants conducted the 2-hour basic course on Second Life in a classroom-like setting using a virtual LCD projector.  The organization was impeccable with 4 main presenters (Blu Heron, Pia Klaar, Dewey Jung, Zotarah Sheperd) taking 20-30 minutes each to cover a topic.  Notecards and materials were passed out to each avatar between segments.  Student avatars were assigned an assistant to answer questions through IM.  My assistant was Bronte Alcott (yes, she was a former English teacher) and she was great! Many questions that had been bugging me in the back of my mind were answered–such as if you “forced midnight” does it make it midnight for everyone around you? The answer is no.  How do you get rid of avatars’ names when you’re trying to see the board? Going into Edit–preferences–general (tab)–and checking on “show names temporarily” will get rid of the names above the head.  If that big furry wolf avatar’s head is blocking your view of the instructor, use “camera control” to get around it.  Learning how to maneuver and use camera controls makes a huge difference on the quality of your Second Life experience from simple viewing to building prims.  And I even learned how to make a notecard from “Inventory” to take home my own notes on the lecture.  Please IM me (Gisk Akina) if you would like a copy of the workshop’s transcript.  I would highly recommend taking a class from them if you are new to Second Life.  Everyone at the Institute was so nice and helpful! Who says you have to have a physical person next to you to learn Second Life? Thumbs up ELVEN Institute! Taking the workshop made me realize that virtual instruction works for me.  Visit the ELVEN Institute’s web site for more information on their workshops: http://elveninstitute.org/ 

I read a heartwarming article in the Seattle Times on October 7th about Second Life improving the quality of real life for many.  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003931084_netavatar07.html

It talks about a wheel-chair bound woman who is able to find physical freedom to walk, run and dance in Second Life, an autistic fellow who is able to learn social cues by chatting in Second Life and a man with agoraphobia (fear of going outdoors) who was able to conquer his fear of going outside by taking one step at a time from Second Life out to First Life.  Cancer survivors find support from other Second Lifers who suffer from the same disease.  These were only some of the many stories cited in the article which sounded too good to be true at first glance.  Could Second Life be this “panacea” that people have claimed it to be? Is it too good to be true?

Well, if we look at Second Life as serendipity, it could explain some of these benefits.  Did Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life set out to make a platform for civil engineering feats, sociological studies and medical practice when he first thought of Second Life? No, he based his vision on the movie MATRIX and the book, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.  I imagine this was how Alexander Fleming felt when he tried to cure syphilis infections, left on a weekend to discover that his dirty petri dish culture wiped out a colony of staphylococci in 1928.  Never in his wildest dreams did he think it would lead to the discovery of an important antibiotic, pencillin, that would save many lives.  Or more recently, NIMH was caught off-guard when they administered scopolamine (an anti-seasickness drug) to depressed patients to check for its effect on memory.  Instead of results on memory tests, they found happier, perkier people the next morning, leading them to a breakthrough in medical science. 

Second Life may not be a panacea but it sure comes close.  Its architectural, educational, business, medical and sociological benefits are only starting to come to light.  And that’s only the tip of the iceberg! With the announcement of of IBM and Linden Lab this month of their collaboration in researching the possibility of avatars transcending different virtual worlds, Second Life will have the potential to create more powerful solutions.  We should expect more serendipitous miracles in the future.  Picture your Level 54 Blademaster in Asheron’s Call reading an online book to your child in Club Penguin world.  Who knows? It may even lead to new research on Early Literacy!

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. 

–Margaret Mead

This summer when the ALA Annual Conference was held in Washington DC, I paid a visit to the FAS (Federation of American Scientists) on K Street.  As the Chair of the newly revamped Great Interactive Software for Kids Committee, I wanted to make sure that our committee had a solid foundation other than playing games for fun.  And although we have expanded our criteria to include the evaluation of console games and other digital forms, in addition to pc cd-roms, I wanted a deeper philosophical backbone to our committee.  So I turned to the scientists for help and decided to pay them a visit since our conference was in their neck of the woods.

I didn’t really know what to expect as I walked into the gray building, heavily guarded by security guards.  Michelle Roper, the Director of FAS Learning Technologies had said that the emergency drills after 9/11 had been frequent, although not so often now.  I don’t think I could ever imagine what it must have been like in DC on September 11th, 2001 when one of the planes crashed into the Pentagon.

FAS was located in one of the top floors with an intercom to let visitors in.  When the receptionist let me in the door, I found a starch-white office complex with multiple cubicles surrounded by pristine walls.  There was little sunlight and the air was thick with concentration and severity.  As a children’s librarian doing story times in lively colorful areas, I felt completely out of context.  I was temporarily relieved when I spotted an adjacent room filled with books on a bookshelf.

When Amy Nicholson, the Program Coordinator for FAS Learning Technologies greeted me, I was surprised to find she was an attractive, energetic woman with a way-cool demeanor.  We instantly got along as we talked about playing games like World of Warcraft, Asheron’s Call and Guitar Hero II.  I admit that I had a stereotypical image of what the scientists might be like after reading their profile on the webpage (since they described themselves as the predecessors of the atomic scientists having worked on the Manhattan Project).  My expectation was to meet people like my undergraduate Chemistry Professor–eccentric, introverted with coke-bottle glasses, pocket protector and gingivitis.  Instead, Sachin Patil and Adam Burrowbridge, the Research Associates, looked like they could have walked off the cover of GQ Magazine.  And although I had never met Michelle Roper, I’m positive that she is just as lovely in person as she is over the phone.  In fact, I was embarassed that I was the one with the glasses, a geeky personality and loud laugh.  Had they decided that I was just a children’s librarian that had nothing to do with their research world, they wouldn’t have given the time or day.  Instead, they were delightful, and patient, helping me understand, in layman terms, different aspects of their project.  

Sachin flew around on Second Life, Discover Babylon, showing me how he was reconstructing the city of Uruk (ancient Iraq) from blueprints.  I had to tell myself to overlook the cosmetic interface and forget that he was flying around in a cartoon body.  I found it challenging not to be overly-conscious and move past it, even though I had been in a multi-user virtual environment before 7 years ago when I played Asheron’s Call.  Second Life is not a game but the Internet in a different skin.  Amy described it very clearly to me that it was a wikipedia of MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online) worlds.  Once I suspended my disbelief, something amazing happened.  I saw the beauty of the technology–that it rolled everything into one–IMing, emailing, podcasting, videostreaming, weblinking (Web 2.0 features) into one.  I finally understood what all the rage was about!  It was truly the internet in its next evolutionary stage.  And a great platform to ally ourselves with other open-minded, public-serving organizations.

At the end of my visit, toting my dictionary of computer terms,  and enlightened by my new-found friends, I left the building with renewed hope for my committee.  The scientists sensed my desperation to help them and invited my committee to become part of their focus group.  And I  became an FAS groupie that day, fueled by their desire to bring learning to the world and their mission for public good.  Thank you FAS.  You rock!

For more information about the FAS and its Learning Technologies Initiatives, visit http://www.fas.org