NYPL Podcast #41 in which Neil Gaiman reads A Chrismas Carol

Christmas is perhaps my favorite time of year! My office has 13 Christmas trees in it. Four trees are decorated to represent the four houses of Hogwarts, one tree is decorated for my beloved alma mater Texas A&M University, one tree plugs into a USB port and lights up, one is painted on a canvas, one is sewn together out of quilt scraps, one is made of ornaments, one is motioned censored and talks to you (I lost the wall battery...on purpose, two on my Snoopy pencil cup, and one is a paper weight. I like to make people guess how many there are when they come into my office for the first time. It makes me happy. 


I like to listen to classic Christmas songs performed by crooners or orchestras. I do not like to listen to pop stars sing Christmas songs because they add warbling that is just unnecessary. Bing Crosby and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra are my favorite. Please no One Direction! 


Another thing about Christmas that I like? A Christmas Carol. Now  A Muppet Christmas Carol is my favorite rendition, but Neil Gaiman's reading is right up there. For your listening enjoyment, click on the link below and transport yourself to Mr. Scrooge's shop and pray that the ghosts are not visiting you this Christmas.



Podcast #41: Neil Gaiman Reads "A Christmas Carol"



Brittany

Tech Recap

I have discussed several different websites and various tech tools teachers and librarians can use, but I feel a quick rehash of them is order. This post is not going to go into much depth as the previous posts did, so I will link back to them in case you want to read them for more information.

Social Media 

Social media is useful for the teachers and librarians because it allows you to connect with students outside of school. What is important about using social media as a teacher or librarians is to remember to keep a professional presence as you are a teacher or librarian. Social media can also be used as a teaching tool. For ideas on how to use the various social media platforms, just click on the links below. I recommend Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for classroom use as they are the more popular of the group. 

Facebook

Twitter

Tumblr

Instagram

Vine

Infographics

Infographics are great tools for creating charts that catch the eye. The days of simple pie charts and bar graphs are gone. Infographics help students visually see what various statistics convey. I like Piktochart, but Easel.ly and Infog.ram are very user friendly. Infographics are also great tools for students to use to show their understanding of material. Click on the heading above for more info about infographics.

Digital Bookshelves & Online Communities

Digital Bookshelves and online book communities help you keep track of classroom libraries or help you recommend books to your students. Think of them as specialized social media sites as people who use these sites are book lovers. My favorites are Goodreads and BookLikes. Want more info on these types of sites? Click on the heading above.

Videos

I don't think I have to sell you too much on how beneficial videos are in class. We have a visual generation and videos fit the bill! Students enjoy watching videos, even if the say they don't, and creating them is just as much fun for them. It allows them to demonstrate their creativity and learn how to use a new medium. YouTube is a great way to find good videos and it is easy to post your own videos to YouTube. Animoto allows you to create short videos using pictures and music for free. For a small monthly fee ($5), you can create longer videos. Enjoy this video I found on YouTube. The cuteness level is off the charts!

QR Codes

QR codes are wonderful ways of getting students interested and active in class because they can use their phones in class! They are simple to make, easy to share, and printable. You can find free QR code generators online, and you can download a QR code reader from your app store. Some QR code readers are also generators, so you can create codes using your phone.

Podcasts

Podcasts can be audio and audiovisual depending on what you use to create your podcast. SoundCloud and AudioBoo are the websites that I like for posting podcasts as they were much easier for me to use than Podomatic. All three allow you to record your voice, but not all of them allow you to record video. I use the Garageband App on my iPad to record, so I upload files to the sites instead of using them to record my podcasts.

Cartoons & Comics

Like videos, cartoons allow students to show their understanding of the content while showing off their creativity. I found Pixton to provide the most control over the comic, but ToonDoo is easy to use and has a lots of tools to use. MakeBeliefsComix.com is extremely easy to use, but does not have as many options as Pixton or ToonDoo. 

Screencasts

Screencasts are videos of what you are doing on your computer. They are useful for presentations and instructional videos. I like Screencast-O-Matic as Screenr gave me lots of trouble to get the site to work. Once I got it to work, it was very simple to use. Both of these sites allow you to post your videos to YouTube. 

Low-Down on Teen Tech Use

By now, it is safe to say that virtually every teenage in America has been on the Internet at some point in their life. It is also safe to say that these individuals are getting online regularly. But if we break the statistics down further, how often are different sub pops going online?

Internet Use

• Teens who identify as white are 97% likely to use the Internet while 88% of Latino teens report using the Internet.
• This statistic goes down if the teen is of low SES

Computer Ownership

• There is no real difference among the races or ethnic groups; however, only 65% of teens in low education households report owning a computer.

Cell Phone Ownership

• Girls and Boys are equally likely to own a cell phone
• Teens ages 14-17 are 30% more likely to own a cell phone than younger teens. (87% vs. 57%)
• More white teens have cell phones than black or Hispanic teens
• The higher the income or education of teens parents, the more likely teens will own a cell phone.
• Only 23% of teens report owning a smartphone

Social Networks

• In 2011, 80% of teens reported using social networks. 
• 16% reported they used Twitter
• Teens in lower income families are more likely to use SNS than teens in high income families
• Girls are more likely than boys to use SNS
• Older teens more so than younger teens
• 62% of teens report having their social networking accounts as private

Cyber Bullying

• 69% of teens stay that other SNS users their age are kind/friendly
• 47% say they witness cruelty on the net occasionally while only 12% say they frequently witness cruelty on the net

What does this mean for teachers, librarians, and/or districts? Teachers need to make sure that they are utilizing the Internet in the classroom so that students who do not have Internet or computers at home get practice using the web. Districts need to provide their schools with updated, or as up-to-date as possible, computers, tablets, and other technology so that all students have access to the same information. Librarians need to make sure they have a presence on the Internet, especially SNS, so they can provide resources to all sub populations.

Digital Divides and Bridges: Technology Use Among Youth from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Lenhart, A. (2012, April 13). Digital Divides and Bridges: Technology Use Among Youth. Retrieved December 4, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/04/13/digital-divides-and-bridges-technology-use-among-youth/

Mining PEW Progress: 151/150

Online Teen Behavior

Let's get real about teen Internet use. I bet if you were to ask parents, teachers, and adults over the age of 35 how much teens use the Internet, almost all of them will say, "All the time!" While it may feel like teens are on the Internet all the time, is that truly the case? Are teens the ones taking up all of our precious bandwidth? They very well might be, but you might be surprised at how teens use the Internet.

Teens (and 18-29 year olds) are the largest users of the Internet. Now consider why teens are accessing the Internet. Yes they are accessing the Internet to update their various social media platforms and watch vidoes on YouTube, but they are also accessing the Internet for school related needs. More and more classes have an online component, so students are going to be accessing the net. I know I had my students researching and completing assignments online as well as many of my fellow teachers. Many college students are taking courses online, so they too are accessing the Internet for educational purposes. 

What are they using to access the net? Desktops or laptop computers, surprising no? Most teens do not own a cell phone with even less having a smartphone. This surprised me as I felt like all of my 8th graders had a cell phone with very few being "dumbphones." According to the Pew researcehrs, 87% of older teens from high income families are the ones with cell phones. I taught in a low income district, so this stat is a bit perplexing to me. However my microcosm does not represent the whole of the U.S., so that is something to keep in mind when using your personal experience to debunk stats. Of the students who have cell phones, most teens use them for texting or talking, with girls being in the lead.

https://www.google.com/search?q=smartphone+creative+commons&espv=2&biw=1273&bih=683&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=XHp-VIDaFIWeyQT3xYK4Bg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

One very surprising stat was just 6% of teens like to use geolocation services to check-in and connect with friends. It seems that our teens have more common sense than we give them credit for when it comes to online safety. 

Social media is extremely popular with teens, with Facebook being king. Twitter does not come close to catching up to Facebook, and Instagram is even less popular. It might also surprise you that teens are not the only ones whose lives revolve around social networking sites (SNS).  Adults enjoy trolling Facebook just as much as teens. Parents are evening friending their children on SNS. While on SNS, most teens are chatting with friends via chat features. Commenting on posts and updating status are a close second and third in popularity. Getting back to privacy, 62% of teens use privacy settings on SNS. Teens are also conscious of what the post and do not post on SNS.

When it comes how teens perceive people to behave on the Internet, they are a bit inconsistent. The majority of teens said people are mostly kind on the Internet, but the words they used to describe were contrary to this statement. Terms such as rude, fake, mean, and different were some of the most popular. Perhaps their infrequent negative experiences have impacted them more than they realize, or perhaps they are not being as honest with themselves as they think. When asked how people should act, respectful was the word most teens chose. 

This report states that teens turn to parents when it comes to online safety, but in another report by Pew, teens were more likely to turn to each other. This difference could be a result of a broader/narrower search for the two surveys, or it could be a result of time. 

What does all of this mean for the library? We have got to be online! We need to tear down our physical barriers and be everywhere our students our. This also means that we have to have technology available to our students so that these digital natives become productive digital citizens who use the Internet in more ways than watching videos on YouTube. We have to teach our students how to research, how to cite their sources, and how to evaluate sources for credibility. Just because teens have been around digital technology all of theirs, does not mean they know how to properly use it.

Brittany

Teens 2012: Truth, Trends, and Myths About Teen Online Behavior from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Purcell, K. (2012, July 11). Teens 2012: Truth, Trends, and Myths About Teen Online Behavior. Retrieved December 3, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/07/11/teens-2012-truth-trends-and-myths-about-teen-online-behavior/

Mining PEW Progress: 136/150

A Sad Tale Indeed

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20141201_School_libraries_are_essential_for_learning.html#ZQJTvWFMu4w7gdcj.99

This scare me, and not just because I love the library. Cutting programs that are proven to help students does nothing in closing the achievement gap. We need community members to stand up and support libraries.

http://collegereadycoach.com/2013/08/22/public-education-it-makes-society-collectively-smarter/