Cyberspace A?la Carte
ICONnect: Just the FAQs, Please
J. Mancall, B. Stafford, C. Zanger -- School Library Journal, 2/1/1999
Jacqueline C. Mancall is professor of information studies at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, and a past president of AASL; Brian Stafford is educational media specialist at Lenape High School in Medford, NJ; and Colleen M. Zanger is educational media specialist at Triton Regional High School in Runnemede, NJ. The authors are members of AASL's ICONnect evaluation committee. 
Illustration by Matt Mahurin
The American Association of School Librarians is serving up a five-course feast of online resources, guaranteed to whet any appetite.
When it comes to the Internet, what's your top priority?
Designing a home page? Creating an interactive unit on the American Revolution? Helping teachers or students search the Web efficiently? Maybe it's something more basic, like learning what .com, ftp, and domain mean.
Internet use in school libraries presents any number of challenges, which is why members of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) created their free online teaching tool, ICONnect.
What began three years ago as a way to help librarians understand the technology and integrate it into their media programs has matured into a buffet of online courses and tools that benefit the entire school community: educators, students, and their families. Its ever-expanding resources and 275 volunteers offer help for everything from understanding e-mail to answering homework questions online to keeping current on developments in interactive technologies like Java and ActiveX.
ICONnect's courses are self-directed, so you determine the content you want and you set the pace. And if you're not sure what you need to learn first, visit the ICONnect home page (www.ala.org/ICONN) and start sampling.
ICONnect:
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I Online Courses
ICONnect's courses were originally designed with librarians in mind, but now they're available to everyone. These e-mail-based courses address a variety of topics at levels from newbie to expert. Media specialists who want to explore the fundamentals of Internet use should begin by taking IBASICS, a five-part course that has already helped more than 3,000 users understand netiquette, how listservs and newsgroups work, and how e-mail can expand students' learning opportunities. This course raises users' comfort levels by explaining common Internet terms-such as telnet, ftp, and server-and giving users the vocabulary necessary to jump to the next level-the advanced courses. These address nuts-and-bolts topics like navigating the Web and curriculum integration, as well as philosophical, legal, and academic issues such as filters, acceptable-use policies, copyright, and the citation format for Web sites. InformLit, a new course that is currently in development, will look at AASL's new information literacy standards and how ICONnect can help students achieve them. Once you've sampled this array of courses, it's time to share your knowledge with the rest of the school. Don't think you have to reinvent the wheel; feel free to adapt one of ICONnect's courses for in-service workshops for teachers or other staff members.
II Best Practices
Integrating the Internet into your school's curriculum is an enormous challenge. It includes everything from developing an acceptable-use policy to evaluating Web sites to planning lessons. To help you on your way, ICONnect has compiled a handy assortment of listservs, collection tools, online resources, and librarians' "Best Practices."
Finding the best Web sites for your school requires knowing your curriculum and important criteria about the sites, such as content depth, authority, and ease of navigation. Use ICONnect's evaluation criteria, annotation format, and list of subject resources as a springboard to developing your own annotated collection of links. Also, don't forget to check out the lists of top links on both the KidsConnect and FamiliesConnect pages. They're a great place to find educational and recreational links for kids.
If you're looking for a simple and effective way to introduce the Internet into the curriculum, try a keypal project that connects your students to others around the world. Check out the Keypal Projects link to find out how others have used keypals and get some tips on starting one at your school.
III ICPrizes
Every year, ICONnect awards five $1,000 ICPrizes to teams of classroom teachers and media specialists who develop outstanding classroom projects that use Internet technology. The purpose of the financial awards is twofold: to encourage professional collaboration in curriculum development, and to collect award-winning projects as examples to be shared. One of the unusual aspects of the prizes is that the winners can use the money for any purpose, as long as it enhances their work. Take a look at the 1998 winners to get ideas for creating your own Web-rich units.
IV KidsConnect
For K-12 students, the focal point of ICONnect's resources for students is KidsConnect, a question-answering, help, and referral service, which is operated in partnership with the Information Institute of Syracuse and underwritten by Microsoft. A student who sends in a question receives a response from a library media specialist within two school days. Students can send questions directly to the KidsConnect electronic mailbox or use the form on the ICONnect Web site. Either way, they must provide an e-mail address to which the KidsConnect volunteer can respond.
The backbone of KidsConnect is its more than 200 volunteers around the world. So far, KidsConnect has responded to nearly 11,000 questions, spanning a broad range of subjects. To address some common student research questions, Kids- Connect maintains a lengthy list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) that share the librarian's search strategy along with online and print resources.
The variety of questions received at KidsConnect is a testimony to the intelligence and curiosity of the world's youth. The inquiries can range anywhere from the standard ("Why is the sky blue?") to the undeniably quirky ("If you swallow a scorpion whole and it is still alive in your stomach, will it start to eat its way out?").
KidsConnect occasionally receives questions of a more personal nature, such as the one from an abused student seeking help. KidsConnect Coordinator Blythe Allison Bennett reads all questions and takes responsibility for answering the sensitive ones herself.
V FamiliesConnect
If you have questions, reservations, and concerns about Internet use, be assured that most parents do, too. That's why the ICONnect task force designed the newest ICONnect feature, FamiliesConnect. FamiliesConnect's resources help educate family members as to the technologies their children are using and guide them to the best resources. Through this site, parents can take many of the online courses previously mentioned, including IBASICS and advanced courses in search engines, trends in interactive technologies, and issues such as copyright regulations and filtering software.
The other strength of the site is its annotated list of "10 Top Internet Sites for Families," selected by volunteer library media specialists. These sites are connected to hundreds of recreational and educational links for preschool children through young adults.
ICPrize:
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Recommended Resources
Bennett, Blythe Allison. "Handling the Quirky Questions: A Model for Reference Service." (Knowledge Quest, Jan./Feb. 1998, pp. 59-60).
Berger, Pam. Internet for Active Learners: Curriculum Strategies for K-12 (ALA Editions, 1998).
