A heads up on the latest hardware (ipods, handhelds, portable storage, and more) for the k-12 audience from School Library Journal
Start Your Search Engines Part 2 By Anna Adam and Helen Mowers - 05/01/2008
Are your students struggling to come up with kid-appropriate pictures? Have you ever scrambled to find that perfect image for a presentation? Well, there’s no shortage of search engines that’ll help you do the job, and we’re here to share some of our favorites. There’s no doubt that Google is great for finding images.
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Masters of the Universe: the Passively Multiplayer Online Game By Christopher Harris - 05/01/2008
Given the choice, would you promote order or chaos? Not good or evil, mind you, but the absolute structure of order versus the free-flowing randomness of chaos. This may seem to be a rhetorical question for librarians, but let me take this opportunity to speak in support of chaos. Shocking, I know, but it just might be the next big thing for libraries.
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What Would Madison Avenue Do? Marketing to Teens By Anastasia Goodstein - 05/01/2008
Whether you work for Nike or in a library, it’s tough to attract an audience. And that’s where smart marketing can make all the difference. Even though libraries don’t have millions of dollars to spend on slick Madison Avenue ad campaigns to entice today’s teens, you do have access to the media that kids love, and that’s a great place to start.
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The Buzz: tools, trends, and gizmos By Staff - 05/01/2008
3-D Video Eyes Second Life The clever people at Kapor Enterprises are experimenting with using 3-D video cameras to make virtual environment Second Life, well, more real. Mitch Kapor, chair of Linden Labs, maker of Second Life, has posted a video demo of the new interface, which allows users to control their avatar in real time, using body movement.
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Are You and Papa Hemingway a Match? Lauren Barack - 04/14/2008
There's nothing like snooping through a person's library to sneak a peak at what they’re reading. Now bibliophiles can compare their fave books to those of Ernest Hemingway—just the latest name to join the “I See Dead People[’s Books]” list, an online repository that attempts to catalog the complete libraries of history's more famous readers.
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Let’s Meet Online: (Mostly) free software for getting together on the Web By Steve Hargadon - 04/01/2008
Skype www.skype.com Now owned by eBay, this free program for computer-to-computer calls keeps getting better. While technically not a Web-based tool (you download the program and run it from your PC/Mac/Linux computer), it represents a huge step forward in collaboration and thereby merits first-place mention here.
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Surface Computing Coming to your Library? By Christopher Harris - 04/01/2008
A student walks into your media center, heads over to the reference desk and places his palm on the surface to access his network pass. The system, recognizing the student, then displays an assignment from his teacher, along with the pathfinder you created for the project. Another student lays her handheld on the desk and seeing her assignment appear, reaches out and drags it onto her device.
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Podcasts are a great way to expand learning beyond the classroom or library. Here are more recommendations from Tech Chicks Anna Adam and Helen Mowers, following up their Dec. 2007 article Listen Up!
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