Positive Use of Social Networking #4 – Flicktion

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During October a small group of YALSA bloggers will post ideas and information about positive uses of social networking tools in schools and libraries. Here’s positive use #4.


Many of you might have heard the term ‘Flicktion’ before and might even have used it in your school or library as a story starter. If so, please share! If not, do a search on Flickr for the tag ‘flicktion’ (or a Google search if you don’t have a Flickr account). The description underneath the pictures tell a story from the viewer of the photo. They can then share this with other viewers, which will allow for more comments and read/write activity.


If you are already using Flickr at your library to post photos of programs, consider creating a set of Flicktion photos with teens, and see how they respond. If teens have a writing club, online newsletter or participate in a bookclub at a jail, consider using this tool to engage them.


Pictures of their avatar, completed quest, or any high action scene in their favorite video game often have photo enabled tools within the online environment, they can quickly take a snapshot of and post to Flickr and let the stories begin.


If your’e still not sold on using this photo sharing site for story starters, check out ALAs TechSource post by Michael Stephens. He has a lot to say about the positive uses of Flickr.


Once again, if DOPA is passed sites like Flickr won’t be available in schools and public libraries. That also means that librarians won’t have the opportunity to help teens navigate responsibly through such sites as Flickr.


Posted by Kelly Czarnecki

Graphic Novel Suggestions for Librarians

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The National Coalition Against Censorship, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and ALA, produced an “informational booklet offering background and reference material about the graphic novel category.” The booklet can be found on the NCAC site as well as ALA. The article with this information can be found here.

Are any libraries highlighting particular graphic novels for Banned Books Week? Any libraries combining information on DOPA with BBW?

Any recently discovered online resources for graphic novels and libraries to share? I like Getting Graphic!which also has a great list of links related to graphic novels and libraries.

Published by Kelly Czarnecki

MySpace for Parents

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In a May 2006 interview on DOPA and MySpace with Henry Jenkins and danah boyd, Jenkins states that, “Parents face serious challenges in helping their children negotiate through these new online environments. They receive very little advice about how to build a constructive relationship with media within their families or how to help their offspring make ethical choices as participants in these online worlds.”
At my library, my colleagues are offering a ‘MySpace for Parents‘ class where they teach parents how to set up their own MySpace account, and what to look for when their teens set up their own page. They also include resources in the workshop for further reading and information on other social networking sites the library uses.

What are other libraries doing to help parents help their teens ‘negotiate these online environments’? Or any ideas of what else we could be doing? Even if DOPA passes, parents will still need to know this information.

Posted by Kelly Czarnecki

Sharing stories under the stars

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Posted by Kelly Czarnecki

I had the pleasure of dining this week with Michael Stephens and Michael Casey, along with other staff from my library, including, Helene Blowers, the tech goddess that organized their visit. I mention dinner not because I learned that Michael ordered stacked brie and tomatoes and scallops with lettuce on the side (wait until the tabloids get a hold of that one!) but because we shared our stories. Our stories about technology and how we use it to create and redefine relationships (idea shared: ask people to bring their laptops or provide computers to have a digital scrapbooking get together), what libraries are considered innovators (Michael S. mentioned Cherry Hill Public Library in New Jersey for ripping their entire music collection into iTunes), and what we can do as a large library system to embrace Library 2.0. (check out: http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/)

What resonated most about Library 2.0 to me is it’s relationship to DOPA and the affect it will have on the culture that many of us try to create for teens in our libraries. It’s not all about having the coolest and biggest technology available, but the relationships that are possible as a result of these technologies. It’s about our stories and their stories and how developmental needs are fostered through what Library 2.0 allows.

Library 2.0 / Developmental assets:
a culture of trust / positive values
self correcting / empowerment
participation and play / constructive use of time
transparency/boundaries and expectations
collaboration / support

Those are only a few. There’s so many more.

A story to share-we had a drop-in podcasting session at our library yesterday. The teens wanted to upload their recording to their MySpace page. I helped them and got to know them a bit more and they agreed to have their recordings on our library site as well. What are your stories with social networking? The discussion board on the YALSA wiki is a great place to share-because that’s what DOPA is really going to effect-and how dare it.

By the way, Michael S., if you’re reading this-you owe me a round (or two) of DDR.

Letter to Congress

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I tried to reply to Linda’s post, but my comment was “invalid!” so here it is:

OMG.

I didn’t check my email all day. See, bad things happen when you are offline!

I did compose a note to my Congressman, in the hopes he and his aides read their email in the AM.

Dear Congressman,

I am writing to implore you to vote AGAINST the Deleting Online Predators Act as it is currently written. The Internet today is a interactive and dynamic one, where ANY website that allows you to sign in and interact with other users is a social software website including online department stores like Amazon.com, WebCT (used for online courses), news sites like Digg.com and Instant Messaging services used by over 75% of teens! An educational exception can be applied to each and EVERY use of blogs, wikis, and social software – I learn something new every time I log on to a social software website, where I read, discuss, analyze, create, think critically, search, hypothesize, and prove. I cannot echo Beth Yoke, Executive Director of YALSA, enough: EDUCATION, NOT LAWS BLOCKING ACCESS, IS THE KEY TO SAFE USE OF THE INTERNET.

By largest concern is for students themselves. According to the Search Institute (url), there are forty developmental assets that teens need to grow up into healthy, contributing members of our society. Things like support in the form of adult mentors who are not blood relatives (i.e. an aspiring teen writer talking to an author in an online chat or via MySpace), clear boundaries (i.e. by following rules set by individual libraries and communities), being viewed as resources (i.e. valued for their fan fiction and web building and video game modding) and socialization (i.e. journalling, sharing photos, and creating films), to name a few. Access to these asset-building social softwares are KEY to teens emotional and psychological and physical and spiritual growth! How would banning collaborative web applications stunt that growth?

My next concern is that librarians, who are on the forefront of this Internet safety issue (and ethical use of the Internet, I might add!) were NOT included in the committee, although this legislation affects those that get E-rates. Why were no librarians included, when such legislation would have such a major impact? We are working so hard to DECREASE the digital divide by provided access to those who cannot get it at home – people in impoverished areas of the country, often people who are minorities.

My final concern is that this piece of legislation takes power AWAY from parents, and I simply do not believe it is the job of the government to be a parenting institution.

Although I understand schools act in loco parentis, and that students may be distracted at school by games, instant messaging, blogging, etc, drill and practice is boring for kids who have grown up playing video games. They need a sense of engagement to think more deeply. Perhaps, assignments should integrate social software web applications to meet the needs of today’s students. It’s a whole new literacy out there! Let’s prepare kids for it – not censor it.

Kind regards,

Beth Gallaway, MLS
Library trainer/consultant
Hampton NH