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My paper:  “How Library 2.0 Can Enhance Teacher Collaboration and Effect Student Learning Outcomes in School Media Centers. 

            OK, you’re 15 years old again, in a high school communications class (what we used to call English) and studying “To Kill a Mockingbird”. (Had to choose this title so close to Banned Books week). You can choose to write a book report, fill out a packet about the book, or post three blogs on the classroom book discussion blog. Kids still love this old classic, but they want to learn about it in a classroom culture which matches the way they communicate. They want to participate in their learning, they want to digitally create and share what they are learning. Unfortunately, not enough teachers are offering the “blog” / 2.0 option. Research supports that millenials’ intelligence is up due to the digital environment they grew up with. To connect with these students there needs to be a new culture of community in schools centered around social learning. There is a natural motivation to become part of this community, just like students want to build their other social networking communities online – here there happens to be “learning” taking place. As librarians, we are instrumental in making that happen. We have to bring teachers on board to change the misperceptions of how students learn today and how valuable 2.0 and other technology tools are in developing lifelong learners in the 21^st century.

Nov. 5^th edition of the StarTribune Business Section: Article “Layoff Blogs”

Quote:  “Today, whatever you say inside of a company will end up on a blog.”

            Rusty Rueff, former human resources exec at Electronic Arts and PepsiCo.

Other information: www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

–The plus side – only 3 more days of negative political ads and we get an extra hour of sleep tonight!

“Library PR 2.0” in the recent 10-15-08 issue. I was excited about their twist on marketing today.

2.0 is definitely changing public relations. The PR message used to be one way, from the corporation to the public and we just listened. Now the PR message is two way. Consumers are no longer just listening, they want to have a say about the product or service. Back when I worked for broadcasting companies, advertising 101 stated that the best form of advertising was “word of mouth”. This is similar to what they refer to in the article as the grapevine, which can be a good form of word-of-mouth advertising. We want people to talk about our product and service – hopefully most of it is positive. But we need them to voice their opinion if the product or service is not up to par. That’s the foundation behind ‘customer service’. Until 2.0, customer service was one-sided. If you did a good job, people returned. If you didn’t meet their satisfaction, they didn’t return. That holds true today, but customers want a say in what you are offering. Take fast-food restaurants as an example–“Have it your way…” has a new meaning now. With the impact of the movie “Supersize Me”…the entire industry ‘down-sized’ its servings and made more healthy alternatives on their menus with the pressure of the rise in obesity of our kids.  And then there is the advertising “testimonial” which has always been successful – if Brett Favre buys this brand of _______, then you should too. I love the phrase in the article “PR-speak stinks”. Invite patrons to participate in what is working or not working in your library. People will buy-in to something more if they have a say in what that something will be.  I used to moderate focus groups and this was the forum back then for getting upfront input on a TV or radio personality or station format. Now we can do this with 2.0 on a daily basis. I guess we can simplify this – 2.0 is taking the former suggestion box to the next level. As librarians, we need to speak less, and listen more to what our patrons are asking of us and the library. 

Kids can put items into their backpacks (World book’s bookmarking & tagging tool). They can access World book on any school computer, use the district password outside of school and then set up their backpack account for access from any computer. This would be similar to RefWorks at St. Kate’s Library. If anyone is interested, I can bring a couple of handouts to the next class or maybe Michael will want to show you part of the website if I type in our district password.  I can’t wait to get started with some research lesson plans.

WOW!

Columnist George Will accuses that modern techy entertainment is “dumbing down” our consumers with a “more sophisticated delivery of stupidity”.  In his book, Johnson argues that the culture is more demanding and is positively altering the cognitive development of today’s youth.

• Gaming & 2.0 is not making us read less, in fact we’re reading & writing more online
• Our time is being split between more different choices, so usage is down in a lot of different entertainment levels:  going to movies and TV viewing
• Rise of the Internet is because it challenges our mind in 3 ways: being participatory, forced to learn new interfaces, and create new channels for social interaction
• According to the 2004 PEW study, 8 million Americans have a weblog or online diary – this number has reached the audience size of TV networks and the reason why – “IT IS PERSONAL”.
• For this generation, “the screen is not something you manipulate, but to project your identity onto, a place to work through the story of your life as it unfolds”. It creates its own risks, but so does every new technology.

There are increasing articles about how schools are not addressing the increasing failure of boys in its classrooms. I remember a Newsweek article that said that boys turn to games because they can “fail” online and not be embarrassed or made fun of as they would at school.  For these reluctant learners, gaming and web 2.0 tools will benefit learning because they make it relevant.  Game designers know this. They design games that are not too hard, not too easy. These are engaging with an edge of problem-solving. You interactively “fill-in” not lean back and watch. Now Education designers (us library folk & teachers) have been encouraging students to “read” at their level, not too hard, not too easy. But what’s missing is we need to make it relevant – and engage them interactively and we can do that with 2.0 tools.

Actually Making Us Smarter” by Stephen Johnson

George Will proclaims modern technology entertainment is creating an “increasingly infantilized society” in which we are ‘dumbing down’ our consumers with “a more sophisticated delivery of stupidity” (Will, 2001). Stephen Johnson is the author of “Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter”. Johnson disagrees with Will by defining a positive trend he labels as “The Sleeper Curve” in which he says that culture is getting more demanding intellectually. This is a spin off from Woody Allen’s movie, “The Sleeper” where scientists negatively labeled several parts of society as being unhealthy.

            Critics claim that this new culture of entertainment is replacing reading books. But people are still reading and are writing more – the literacy landscape is changing now that both are done more online. Reading research increases the cognitive process as one makes sense of words by following narrative threads. In participatory gaming, you’re not just learning one thing, but the game forces your thinking to actually process the information, analyze it, prioritize it, and evaluate evidence—all of which are higher level thinking processes. An example, in the game of chess you have to follow the rules and use them to your advantage. In online gaming there is a multi-layer tasking process where you have to strategize and problem-solve to discover what the rules are.

            Johnson also discusses the increased complexity of plots, subject matter, and relationships in today’s TV shows and movies. “Dallas” was a revolutionary show because of the intertwining plot and character lines – definitely a step up from “The Brady Bunch”. Now, compare these to “24” and “Desperate Housewives”. Disney and Spielberg have added this complexity to the screen with Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and Lord of the Rings. So all levels of media; gaming, TV, and screen are engaging people with an edge of problem-solving. We now have to “fill-in”, not lean back and watch. These are interactive and this is the way today’s kids want to learn:  engage them, challenge them at their level (just like the importance of reading at their level), and entice them by making it something that is relevant.  Hence, the success and appeal of participatory tools in all facets of today’s popular culture.

Johnson, S. (2005). Everything bad is good for you. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Will, G. (2001). Reality television: Oxymoron.

            www.townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/gw20010621.shtml

            This was the cite in Johnson’s book.

1)      Social was a dance – now it’s on online trend defining popular culture

2)      Networking was something you did for a job promotion now it means linkedin, Facebook and MySpace

3)      Google was Barney’s last name – a popular comic strip – it was used in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and now is in the dictionary. If you don’t know who Barney Google is – just ‘google it’.

4)      Friend was a person you had a trusting, supportive, affectionate relationship with … now it’s someone you invite to your blog, Twitter, Facebook etc… site

This last piece “friend” is interesting.

“With strangers connecting and friending each other out there, are social networks actually changing the definition of the word ‘friend?”

http://blogme.dium.com/content/2008/09/social-networks-changing-the-definition-of-friend/ (Link for above blog quote).

Jennifer also made a comment in her blog that the ideal number of social networks to belong to is “7”. I would be interested to find out how many of you belong to “7” … how many less, how many more? Jennifer says she is maxed at 5 – with only a limited amount of time to monitor all these web spaces.

http://www.onteenstoday.com/2008/07/22/serial-friending-how-facebook-is-changing-the-definition-of-friendship/

In the link above, from the mouth of a 15 year old, she said the allure of “friending” on Facebook is just accumulating as many friends as possible as a guage to your popularity. She defines the Facebook friends as: 

            Fake Friends. After you have become accustomed to the system of serial friendships on Facebook, you begin to forget what friendship used to mean and gradually assimilate to the system.  While it may have taken months to wear down your resistance, eventually you receive that friendship request from the person who is not really your friend, who you know that they know you are not friends and you accept their friend request nonetheless.

As part of popular culture, I think this will be an interesting trend to follow – how society will continue to re-define “friend”.  Hey, do you think the dictionary will add a new definition of friend as that part of social networking piece? They added google. 

Social networking has changed the way we communicate and is changing the look of our community. But at least it is just that – the communicating – that helps humanize the WWW, our information community.

Friend, anyone?

     Linda J