Betty's Blog

It's Destiny!

2007-08-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

We all got notification in late June, early July that our new software program will be Follett's Destiny. I am doing a happy dance! We don't know the exact timetable, but this is wonderful news. We will be starting school next week with Dynix, but it is a short time until we move to the 21st century!

I was in school this week and we have new HP thin clients being installed. Not only do they look awesome but the kids can use their flash drives! What a difference this will make in being able to finish their assignments in the library. I am really looking forward to these changes.

Today we had an updated class on Microsoft FrontPage and I redid some of the library website. This was also the day that my last paper for my graduate school was submitted! Now all I need to wait on is a meeting with my advisor and a grade and I AM FINISHED! MSLIS done! Five long years of taking classes completed. So, my husband s taking me on a mini trip to Chicago to celebrate. We will be tourists for a couple of days and see some museums and enjoy some time together before the hectic school year begins.

Dynix Dinosaur to go!

2006-12-06T16:50:00.000-08:00

I got a notice today that there will be a meeting of all the librarians in the district to discuss the future of Dynix as the server has reached obsolescence! Yea!!! So, now we can look at more user friendly library software, what a concept! I am SO very encouraged. There may be an end to this in sight and actually get a usuable program! Got to go and finish my last paper for class! One class and a practicum to go! Yippee!!!

An actor in the family!

2006-11-28T17:17:00.000-08:00

My son was called today and cast in the production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. We are very proud and pleased to see him pursuing his dreams. He was in many productions all though high school and one in college. After appearing in 5-25-77 a movie to be released, we think, in May of 2007, we weren't sure if anything else would come of this avocation. After more auditions that we can count, he got a part at this world-class theater company. So, watch for more of Mark Buenning coming soon!

Website of the month!

2006-11-24T18:17:00.000-08:00

My goal in taking LIS 753 was achieved this week. I was notified by our tech teacher that my library website was named "Website of the Month" for our school district. That was one of my reasons for taking the summer class and imporoving the library website. This was great news. Thanks to all of you in our summer class that helped me through those rough html problems. I appreciated all the help and advice.

ISLMA Conference

2006-11-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

Well, it is done! I presented at my first library conference and it was great, I think. I also went to a fabulous session by Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian. So, I got to see the other half of the Michael & Jenny road show. It was an awesome session and I felt much better after Jenny talked about what a hard concept RSS was. (Yea group!)

So now I am frantically running my school book fair and trying to get my book clubs going again this year. Registered for collection development for the spring so I will be getting closer.

On other fronts, my son is getting called back for parts at Steppenwolf Theater, so he is in search of a job. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and use the days off to get some much needed rest. I know I will.

LSTA GRANT!

2006-09-20T16:49:00.000-07:00

We were notified today that we received the LSTA grant at both midle schools, both North and South in our district. We wrote for high/low books for our at-risk students "Science Success Begins @ the Library." So, this was a very good day! The librarian at the other school and I co-authored the grant and this is a nice boost to our budgets as well as a big help for the teachers and students. No one in my current district has applied for anything like this and so this is quite an accomplishment. It also comes just in time as some budgets are being cut in the district.

My Space Article & stuff

2006-09-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen the U.S. News & World Reports, it is well worth a look. It certainly gives a better view of the site that "the Internet & social networking is bad" frame of mind that is prevalent in many school districts.

I was able to get our catalog on our web site and it works when we are logged on at school. Still cannot put holds there and need some guidelines and instructions about how to customize it, but it is much improved over the Unix based catalog we used in the past. When we get updated computers, we can put that on as our catalog and not deal with Unix any more. Now when we can get rid of the Unix circ desk, we will really be somewhere.

Great News - a useful catalog??

2006-09-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

In fighting with Dynix for I don't know how long, calling tech support and working with our tech person I just found out that our antiquated Unix catalog has the capability to be accessed on the Web! That means we might have a catalog that looks like the one at our high school. OMG, this means it might actually be usable to the kids and staff, what a concept. I can't wait to get the info and reconfigure our two lonely search stations so that a classes can search the library from any computer in the school or at home. This means the kids could actually use it to search for books. We might also be able to do our holds electronically and not with paper slips. This is the best news I have had all year.

On other fronts, since I only got half of the Michael and Jenny road show in our 753 class, I am signing up for Jenny, the "Shifted Librarian's" session at ISLMA. Since the other sessions she has done in the area are during the week, at NSLS and other locations, I figured ISLMA would be a good chance to hear the other expert in the Web 2.0 field. This will give me more ammunition to fight the"Internet is bad and dangerous" mindset going on in our school district. If any of you are there, I am presenting about "Differentiation and the Rebecca Caudill books" on Friday the 10th of November in the afternoon.

New class!

2006-09-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

I am taking Library Materials for Children, a class that is right up my alley. This is a class where you HAVE to read great books, my idea of nirvana. This weekend will be a blur of reading for class, preparing for 6th grade orientation in the library and moving my son into his dorm room at Columbia in Chicago.

On other fronts, school is racing off to a quick start. I taught 8 classes today in between trying to catalog books, process new items, reconcile orders and refill our beanbag chairs. I have established a blog for my book club that is not blocked. Yea! Now, all I have to do is find a way to enroll kids so that it is a closed blog for just the members of my book club. I know Andy did that with our RSS group, so I know it is possible. I will try to figure it out before our book club starts meeting. A few eighth graders are already interested in the book club and will be checking with their friends to get enough participants to make it worthwhile for all of us.

I miss the blogs!

2006-08-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, class is over, but I miss reading everyone's blogs. I set up a facebook account and my son and his girlfriend are coaching me through that. Michael, you should be happy since once you start a class on this library/Web2.0 thing it is hard to quit. (I guess that was the whole point!)

School started this week and I am up to my eyeballs in boxes of books, editing the catalog and processing new books, but I strangely feel disconnected since there is no contact with other librarians and, yes, I miss the blogging. I am still editing my web page but that has to wait for the myriad of orders and procedures that are part of the new school year.

I will be finding my way back to Dominican on Monday and Thursday this week, so there is not a lot or rest between sessions. Take care, everyone and we'll see you in cyberspace!

Web Page Project - #6

2006-08-13T11:08:00.000-07:00

Well, today is the last class for LIS753, one of the best classes ever at Dominican. Today is our final presentation and we will be presenting our web pages that we designed.

Here is the link to mine:http://domin.dom.edu/students/bueneliz/753/NewMSSLibrary.html

This will be my library's web page after a district web site design session on Tuesday. My goal is to be named one of the school district 's"website of the month" in the future. When all the links are finished it will be posted at http://www.lz95.org/mss/faculty/ebuenning/

My school district requires all faculty to have web pages to communicate with both parents and students and provides us with laptops in order to do that. So, my site is currently a work in progress that will actually be used by my students and staff in the fall. All the navigation links will be live (hopefully!) after that session.

Thanks to everyone in this class for sharing their thoughts and making this a totally enjoyable class this summer. I've learned a lot and enjoyed the entire experience. We have some really talented students at Dominican and this was very obvious in this class.

Podcasting Lewis & Clark- #5

2006-08-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

In our travels this summer, we went to visit our daughter in Washington, DC. In the middle of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is a fabulous exhibit running through September 11th on the Bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark expedition. The exhibit fascinated us and when we went the first day, we found that there was an audio tour. When we asked about getting the audio tour, we were informed that it is available to download as a podcast and play on your own iPod. Unfortunately, I did not bring my iPod on our trip, but luckily, our daughter had her first generation, old one available as a spare. She uses her shuffle when she works out and here old one when she flies long distances.

I have used my iPod on walks with the dog and working in my library on days when the kids are not in attendance, but NEVER experienced a podcast. Were we in for a surprise! We were to her apartments in the evening, went on the iTunes site and she walked us through the wonders of podcasts. I know we will be learning about this in the group presentations, but this was amazing! She download things all the time, so she was our native guide in this new, hi-tech unexplored territory (The comparison to Lewis & Clark here is intentional!)

The number and variety of podcasts out there amazed us. However, our purpose was to download the free audio tour. The download was completed, the iPod synched and when we returned to the museum, all you had to do was dial up the corresponding number on the exhibits to experience the wonders of this fabulous exhibit. The audio experience added much to my enjoyment of the artifacts and we spent a leisurely time going through. The opportunities this presents not only for museums but for other institutions also (read libraries) was intriguing to me. I found myself wondering how I could incorporate this technology into my library and curriculum. Hopefully, when we get to our group projects on Saturday, I will get lots of ideas.

So the next time you plan a museum visit, be sure to check out their podcasts before you go!

Web 2.0 Article from the Fort Worth Star Telegram

2006-08-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX) July 23, 2006 Section: Business
Edition: Tarrant Page: F6

Tech companies hope to cash in on Web 2.0
by Aman Batheja, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Out of a second-floor office in Southlake Town Square, 26-year-old Josh Williams is taking on the likes of Microsoft and Oracle. Williams and his staff of seven at Firewheel Design are making a name for themselves among small-business customers with their online invoicing site, Blinksale.com.

The company is following a growing trend of desktop software making the move to the Web. Known as "software as a service," programs including word processors and spreadsheet makers are now fully available online; users don't have to download or install a thing.

Web-based products are garnering the most interest from small businesses that are attracted to the potentially lower costs, compared with traditional software that must be installed on a computer. Along with the software, information entered by users is saved on the Web site.

And when a company's software and data can be accessed from any computer connected to the Internet, it's easier for employees to work away from the office.

"Particularly for small to midsized businesses, the software as a service model is very attractive," said Judy Sweeney, an analyst with Boston-based AMR Research. "They don't need a large IT staff ... and they're getting products that are very easy to use."

Williams, who grew up in Garland and has a background in print design, started Firewheel in Chicago as a Web-design company in 2001. He moved the company to Southlake in 2003. He also runs IconBuffet.com, which sells icons for software developers.

Last year, Williams decided that the company should create its own invoicing system because he was dissatisfied with others on the market. "I'm frustrated when I have to spend more of my time than necessary on overhead and management-type stuff," Williams said. Blinksale launched last summer. Its name is meant to suggest sales that can be processed "in a blink of an eye," Williams said.

The site has been praised by technology bloggers for its elegant design and ease of use. Blinksale now has thousands of customers, Williams said. Most are not paying customers, as users can send up to three invoices a month on the site for free. The site is already attracting enough paying customers to cover its overhead, Williams said. He expects it to be profitable by the end of the year, he said.

The software-as-a-service model isn't exactly new. In the late 1990s, companies with the concept were called "application service providers." The market leader remains San Francisco-based Salesforce.com, with more than 400,000 customers using its customer relationship management software. As broadband access has increased and computer processors have grown faster, more people are finding software delivered over the Web a viable alternative to traditional software.

Charlie Wood has been in the technology industry for nearly 15 years. Last year, he noticed the increasing number of companies using the software as a service model and launched Spanning Partners, which creates applications that work with those sites.Wood said a major reason for the increase in such online services is that renting servers and other costs related to hosting a Web site have dropped dramatically. "A one-man startup like me can deliver software more effectively and cheaply through a Web site than shipping out CDs," Wood said.

For well over a decade, software handling back-office functions and customer-service management has been big business for companies like Microsoft and Oracle. Now, a growing list of startups has invaded their territory. Which products will ultimately win has become a guessing game in the tech community. For instance, along with Blinksale, sites such as sidejobtrack.com and simplybill.com offer similar products.

"It's very hard to see right now. There's like a flat playing field with a whole lot of players," said Tom Snyder, president of Kirkland, Wash.-based iNetOffice, a provider of Web-based office applications. Also complicating things is Microsoft's announcement this year that it plans to offer all of its major software applications as Web-based products. Some have wondered whether Microsoft, through name recognition alone, could simply crowd out all of the startups. Others say the smart startups are going after markets Microsoft doesn't want.
"The good news for little companies is Microsoft can't afford to go after a million little things," Wood said. "That leaves tons and tons of things they're never going to go after."

Most startups appear to be emulating Google, which has enjoyed wild success with its stripped-down search engine. Similarly, many software-as-service companies are offering what has become known as "light" applications, which are sparer versions of the leading software in that field. The target market audience for these sites has predominantly been small businesses, many of which don't use the more robust functions of popular software.

Small businesses are clearly responding. Jupiter Research recently surveyed software use by very small businesses, which it defined as having fewer than 10 employees. The researchers found that 26 percent of those companies had purchased online software services the previous year. Until now, that niche group has been underserved by mass-market software, Williams said. "In some ways, we meet the needs of a group of people that feel Quickbooks might be overkill," said Williams, referring to a leading accounting software product from Intuit. "Software that meets the masses is the old way of thinking."

DJs of T's

The logo for innerTee.com sports a serious-looking monk with a white T-shirt poking out from beneath his traditional robe. Jamie Fisher and Miles Sims say the image speaks to the heart of the online community they're creating around T-shirts. "It's almost a religious experience about people with their T-shirts and the design," Sims said. "People are passionate about the fit and how it looks." Earlier this year, Sims and Fisher launched innerTee.com, which they call a "remixable design community." The Austin duo has spent the past few months contacting artists and designers to submit images to the site. Some designs are simple — a cloud or a tree. Others are more involved, like depictions of deformed robots and cute monsters.

With hundreds of design elements collected, innerTee will fully launch this summer. Visitors to the site will be able to take any of the images and position and play with them to create their own original T-shirts, which will be available for purchase. The designers will receive a royalty payment every time one of their design elements is used on a printed shirt. "The best analogy is a DJ mixing a song," Sims says. "You can use art and mix your own apparel."
As with many recent tech startups, innerTee.com is expanding on a pre-existing idea. The site won't be the first online community of T-shirt lovers. On the popular Threadless.com, run by Chicago-based Skinny Corp., artists submit T-shirt designs and users vote on which ones should be produced. And sites such as Cafepress.com and ArtApart.com have offered on-demand production of personalized shirts and other apparel for years. InnerTee.com will merge the two ideas, allowing users to access a library of images, design their own T-shirts, which will be printed as they are ordered. The company will print the shirts at a facility in Austin. "In theory ... we could produce thousands of shirts each month and never produce the same one twice," Fisher said. Fisher and Sims met in 2001 when both began working for AT&T, then SBC, helping manage the telecommunication company's Internet-related products. Three years ago, they started a T-shirt printing business called Scribe Graphics in north Austin as a side project. That eventually evolved into their own label, called Red Army Surplus Co., that they sell through Amazon.com. Last summer, the idea of a do-it-yourself T-shirt design site came about. The venture is being funded by profits from the Red Army label, Sims said.
The pair is betting on the passion of teenagers and young adults who crave original fashion and want clothes that reflect their personalities. "It's almost a backlash from these big-box stores selling the same old same old," Sims said. InnerTee is just the latest entry in the arena of user-generated content, a concept that's part of a new excitement around the tech industry that's being called Web 2.0.

Photo-sharing site Flickr, video-sharing community YouTube and online encyclopedia Wikipedia have become the standard-bearers for user-generated content. As the thinking goes, why should anyone pay professional writers, photographers and artists to fill up a site with words or images when fervent amateurs will do it for free?

Millions are certainly showing interest in both creating and consuming user-generated content. Flickr, Wikipedia and YouTube all rank among the top 25 most-visited Web sites in the U.S., according to Web tracking firm Alexa.

Donna Bogatin advises companies on how to develop Web-based businesses and blogs about the Web 2.0 phenomenon on the tech site ZDNET.com. She noted that incorporating a sense of collaboration and sharing has become standard fare for startup Web 2.0 companies, and most plan to build their businesses around advertising. The guys behind innerTee.com are taking a different route by selling a product under the guise of creating a community, she said. "The goal may be as prosaic as hawking T-shirts, but the currency in play is Web 2.0 'respect,'" Bogatin wrote in an email. Chris Shipley, a technology analyst who specializes in emerging companies, said the most-popular sites for creative people may change, but that user-generated content as a successful draw for Web sites is here to stay. "We've taken the tools of creation and made them very, very accessible, and people are going to resist having those tools taken away from them," she said.

Networking everywhere

Charles Ribaudo's business card lists no address. Just his name, e-mail address and cellphone number. Ribaudo and partner Jim Young, co-founders of Jambo Networks, are looking for office space in Dallas. In the meantime, they hold most of their meetings at the nearest Starbucks."We have 4,200 offices," Ribaudo joked. Without a physical address, their business exists wherever they are. Their software just might do the same thing for online communities like MySpace. Jambo's software turns laptops and other Wi-Fi-enabled devices into a radar for nearby people who share common interests. Swahili for "hello," Jambo Networks is one of many companies trying to stand out in the increasingly crowded world of online social networking. Rather than creating their own networking site that would have to steal users from competitors like MySpace and LinkedIn, Jambo.net is working on partnering with those sites and sharing in the revenue. "Our goal is to basically lock up that whole market," Ribaudo said. "The faster we can move, the better." Young and Ribaudo got the idea for technology that encouraged chance encounters after a chance encounter of their own. They met in 1993 during a trip to Kenya they both took through a leadership program. Young had just graduated from Southern Methodist University. Ribaudo was a senior at the University of Richmond in Virginia. Ten years later, they met again by a fluke in Dallas. They eventually talked about starting a company together and discussed using technology that would, as Ribaudo puts it, "lock up the market on serendipity." The pair spent two years developing their software. Relying on funding from friends and family, the company has grown to five full-time and six part-time employees.

Largely because of the rapid rise of MySpace.com, social networking has become the most successful concept to come out of Web 2.0. Earlier this month, Web-tracking firm Hitwise announced that MySpace.com, recently acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., had become the most-visited site in America, nabbing 4.46 percent of all Internet visits for the first week of July. Sites like Sixdegrees, Ryze and Friendster started the innovative idea of connecting people by their common friends and interests back in the late 1990s. The industry is now dominated by MySpace and Facebook, a networking site targeting college students and alumni. A growing crop of sites aimed at niche groups like the business community and pre-teens are also garnering attention. Several sites are expanding their networks to mobile devices. MySpace has made a mobile version of its site available exclusively through cellphone provider Helio. Cellphone providers have become increasingly interested in offering customers more than just games and ringtones, according to Doug Ortega, chief executive of Handango, a Hurst-based provider of downloadable software and content for mobile devices.
"It's certainly aligned with the direction that the mobile market is going, which is more-sophisticated applications," Ortega said. In 2005, Jambo got its debut at DEMO, an annual conference that offers a handpicked group of emerging tech companies a chance to show their stuff to venture capitalists and industry leaders.

Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO conferences, said Jambo was well-received, but investors expressed concern about the practicality of the concept. Did people really want to use their mobile devices to meet complete strangers around them? "We always want information about other people, but we don't always want to give up information about ourselves," Shipley said. Investors are "still trying to fully embrace the advantages of location-based applications."
Jambo isn't the first company to try to take social networking mobile. New York-based Dodgeball.com caught some buzz for a social network based on text messaging in 2000. It was acquired by Google last year but has yet to gain the huge following some of the company's other offerings have. Other location-based social networks include Meetro.com and Plazes.com. Ribaudo and Young have spent recent months raising Jambo's profile by offering its service at conventions, most notably this year at MacWorld in San Francisco and South by Southwest Interactive in Austin. Those who downloaded Jambo's software were asked to single out their interests and the type of people they wanted to meet. That created a kind of wireless matchmaker for people at the convention. At South by Southwest, for example, people hooked into Jambo were able to find like-minded attendees even when outside the Austin Convention Center. That allowed the convention to thrive across the whole city, Young said. But convention work is just a part of Jambo's strategy. The company is focused on being the mobile counterpart for networking sites. Young said the company has been in talks with several sites but declined to name which ones. A couple of deals will probably be announced this summer, he said. "We're basically taking their databases and their networks and notifying their members when other members are near them," Young said. The company is raising venture funding and preparing to expand Jambo's capability to Bluetooth-enabled gadgets. Ribaudo said the company would succeed because most people don't want to be connected globally at the expense of missing those special people around them. "This is a way to bring people back together," he said.

Aman Batheja, 817-390-7695 abatheja@star-telegram.com

Charles Ribaudo, left, and Jim Young, co-founders of Jambo Networks, don't have an office yet. They usually meet at Starbucks. Jambo helps Wi-Fi users find others in their area with similar interests.

SPECIAL TO THE STAR-TELEGRAM/MIKE FUENTES

Josh Williams runs Firewheel Design, a tech startup in Southlake that offers Blinksale.com, an online invoicing system for small businesses. The company is part of the software-as-a-service trend.

STAR-TELEGRAM/JEFFERY WASHINGTON

InnerTee founder Miles Sims edits shirt designs on the startup business's Web site in Austin. Users will be able to design and create their own shirts with art on the site.

SPECIAL TO THE STAR-TELEGRAM/JACK PLUNKETT

Copyright (c) 2006 Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Travel, Cell Phones, Internet, & Web 2.0 - #4

2006-08-04T14:28:00.000-07:00

After our last class, we had a long-awaited trip planned to the Austin, Texas area. Steve was attending a workshop at UT-Austin for AP World History teachers. I was getting an eagerly anticipated chance to catch up with family, do research for our group project and finish my web page.

We drove in three-digit heat to Texas and had a lovely visit with my uncle in Dallas. The next day we had lunch with one cousin and went to see another cousin when we got news that there had been a death in the family. While we were making arrangements to come home, I found a great article (in next post) about businesses utilizing Web 2.0 in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Thanks to the beauties of Wifi available in local area establishments, we were able to book plane tickets, begin funeral arrangements, make hotel reservations and secure rental cars all while on the road back to Illinois.

I was grateful the entire trip home for the connectivity offered by cell phones, laptops and Internet availability in hotels. Without these necessities of modern life, we would not have known that Steve’s dad died, been able to contact the nursing home, the funeral home, other family members and so on. Yes, cell phones can be an annoyance, but in this instance, I will be eternally grateful for the convenience provided by having phones available in our entire family. We were able to cancel attendance at the conference, cancel hotel reservations and make all the necessary arrangements en route. We made plane reservations from Panera Bread in the middle of Oklahoma. We had the outlines of a memorial service accomplished by e-mailing each other in various locations. Even the priest conducting the service sent and received information by e-mail.

I have read in several blogs about the necessity of stepping away from the computer when we do our work that way all day, but here is a flip side of that and just how helpful these tools can be. We are still dealing with moving belongings and settling the estate, but e-mail and cell phones make it much easier to accomplish these tasks even from a long distance away.

A Copyright Conundrum - #3

2006-07-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

As I try to emphasize copyright in many lessons with my students with the consequences and examples of plagiarism in the publishing and world at large, I am often met with blank stares. I hoped that in other academic settings this was of more concern. However, lately I have been disheartened by some experiences that two authors in my family have experienced. My husband recently wrote a teaching unit for a division of a major university. When the unit was received at the program, the interns working on the project eliminated all the footnotes and references summarily. When the unit was sent back to him for proofreading, the head of the program received an immediate call from my husband who informed him that he had a problem with the lack of citations when he had been so careful to cite things correctly. The citations were restored.

My daughter is working for a think tank in our nation’s capital and is helping to edit a forthcoming book. The book is a collection of articles by experts in the international relations concerning the Middle East. Most of the articles were submitted to her agency with only web links as references. It has become her incredibly time-consuming task to track down these references and she will not be happy until things are cited correctly. Well-regarded professors in major universities and international relations experts submitted these articles. Her professors at Illinois Wesleyan were very meticulous about this issue, thank goodness!

What has happened to make these instances common? What has happened to academic integrity and the issues that we teach as librarians?

In one instance, the lack of a style sheet as they have for World Libraries could have made things much better. However, to completely remove carefully cited information or not to include it at all and not think that is unusual is disturbing to me. Do these issues concern you? What has been your experience, are people in your workplaces indifferent about this?

Create PDF files on Windows

2006-07-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

There is a nifty little program that is free to create pfd files for you windows users. This is from a company called Software 995. This is a program called PDF 995 that I found out about from my tech guy at my middle school. They use it since it is free and doesn't mess up anything on our network. So, download and enjoy!

School Library Weblogs

2006-07-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

It seems to be quite difficult finding school library web logs. Part of that problem may be the security issues and filters. I did find a site that has some listed at the International Association of School Libraries. So if any of you find that information out there in cyberspace, please send them on or post them on your blog for class. It seems as it we want to make these opportunities available to our students to teach them to use the Web 2.o tools in a safe environment, we are fighting city hall. I am committed to finding a way for my eight grade book club to blog about their reading and our books, but so far have not find a way around the filter issue. I will keep at it!

Lots of good Web 2.0 stuff in SLJ

2006-07-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

This month's School Library Journal has a plethora of information concerning Web 2.0 that runs the gamut from parents' fear of the Internet to Bully for Blogging. There is also an article and picture from the ALA Boot Camp (yes, Michael is featured prominently). The picture is only in the print version, sorry. Chris Harris, the author featured in several of our articles for class has an article about Flickr and Bubbleshare. There is also a family networking alternative to MySpace in another article. This issue is full of technology and Internet information. So, if these issues are making their way into SLJ, we school library media specialists need to know more about all these issues.

Pew Internet Life Study

2006-07-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

In looking at all this information and the Internet, there was an interesting article in the July 7th, Chicago Tribune. Here is the link to the article by Steve Johnson. The Pew Internet Life Survey showed that "Gender differences non-existent when it comes to surfing skills."

This is a continual discussion at my house. My husband and I are both teachers and we both just started our first blog for classes we are taking this summer. My husband proudly announced in the car the other day that he was the first one from his class to establish a blog. However, he established a blog, but there are no posts as of yet. I tried to explain to him that it is not a blog unless there is something for people to read when they get to his site.
Both our kids (23 & 21) are established bloggers and laughed that mom and dad are finally joining this phenomenon. In fact, our daughter kept us informed about her experiences at Oxford University in 2003-04 by using a blog. We will see how this progresses.

A Library System Director's view on MySpace

2006-06-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Bev Obert, system director of Rolling Prairie Library System was quoted in a recent newspaper article in the Decatur Herald-Review and their library policies on MySpace. One of the best features of this article was that Chris Sweet, a reference librarian at the Decatur Public Library is now going to do training (as we all should) to educate our students (&/or their parents) about appropriate use of the site since they will be using it anyway, it is our job to use this as a "teachable moment!"

I asked my son and his girlfiend, both college students, and they offered their opinions on the MySpace controversy. They think FaceBook is a better site in that the ability to refuse or deny to contact someone is built into the site. They thought that should be part of MySpace (as a cefault) as it would offer more protection to those teens who do not always want to indicate that they are under 16. So, that was my small survey of young adults ages 19 and 21.

Web 2.0 and Library U

2006-06-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

Seems like everyone is getting on this Web 2.0 bandwagon, so if you want more info, this is the place to be! I got this notice from NSLS

NEW LIBRARYU MODULE
LibraryU, the hugely popular Web-based training initiative has a new module entitled, "The Internet and Teens: Social Networking Safety". How many times have you heard a young person talk about "blogging" or "myspace" and wondered what language they were speaking? If you've ever been concerned about the amount of time that your child spends on the Internet, or wondered what they were doing, this module will help you to understand more about blogging, what role it plays in the lives of teens especially, and how you can help them to use this communication tool in a safe and positive environment. You can sign up for the module at <http://www.libraryu.org>. On July 26, LibraryU will host a live online presentation with module author Bill Erbes, the Assistant Director of the Bensenville Community Public Library District. Erbes will give an interactive presentation, discussion and dialog on this important topic. The presentation is free, but you must register by going to http://www.libraryu.org.
Whether you are a parent, teacher, librarian, or interested in the trends in teen Internet usage, this event will be engaging and informative.

The Amazing Internet

2006-06-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

The most amazing feature of the Internet to me is to be able to chat on camera to my son-in-law in Iraq. We can see him, he can see us, and here are no long distance charges! The fact that my cell phone and PDA can access the Internet is a little overwhelming. In fact, I had to get my mom’s Internet on her cell phone disabled since at 86, she cannot see when she accidentally presses the wrong button and is connected to the web indefinitely and we are charged for the time.

Invisible Web is also a tem that is confusing to many people. These web pages are there, but not found by the usual search engines. I went to a workshop on that topic at an Illinois School Library Media Association conference. Teachers at my school often think everything is accessible on the Internet with a Google search. I understand that, but RSS & podcasting are mysteries I have yet to experience. That is where this class comes in.

One of the big concerns about the Internet and our network at my school district is with the use of streaming video and the bandwidth that it consumes. We cannot download or stream video during the school day or it crashes our network. So, it seems as if schools are always scrambling to keep up.

Another big concern of mine is the digital divide. While most of my students have Internet access at home, there are many of our at risk students who do not have computers at home, much less, Internet access available to them. That is a big reason why our school library is open an hour after school each day, as that helps “even the playing field,” as they say for those students.

Internet, but first a little computer history -#1

2006-06-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

It is hard for me to think about the history of the Internet without thinking of my history with computers. Undergraduate days were spent typing papers. In graduate school at Concordia, we also typed papers by hand, but in my research class, we had to run a statistical computer program. We went to the computer “room” where the mainframe was located and punched the @#$% cards as a group. If anyone incorrectly pressed the letter l instead of a number 1, the program would not run and would spit the cards out all over the room. We have come a very long way since that time in the mid-1970’s.
My first experience with personal computers was with the early Apple computers when I taught in Palatine, District 15. My students practiced their math facts on the computer and it proved to be much more fun than the old flash cards. Then later I used computers as a volunteer “computer mom” at my children’s’ elementary school. I also helped automate their school library by locating the records for books on a CD-ROM and downloading them. In the 1990’s, I had to telnet into the library at NIU and that was all kinds of fun! Our first home computer was a Mac LC (I forget the number) and soon after, we began to use the Internet on the noisy dial-up modems. I seem to remember that sometime in the 90’s we started using a graphical interface that made “surfing” a much more enjoyable experience.
It was amazing to read in an article from Encyclopedia Britannica that SABRE (airline reservations) and AUTODIN (a defense system) were operational in the late 50’s and 60’s. WOW! I did not realize those networks went back that far. I knew about Mosaic, which became Netscape since we used that in my classes at Northern Illinois in the mid-1990’s. Has there ever been any other technological advance that has grown at “100 per cent, per year?” (EB)

Guacamole en Molcajete from the Adobo Grill

2006-06-12T11:39:00.001-07:00

After the trip to Chipolte, I remembered that I had this fabulous recipe and said I would post it to the blog. Well, here it is as I do not know yet how to attach a pdf file. The chef appeared on NBC5 and the recipe was on their website for a short time for Cinco de Mayo.

From The Adobo Grill in Wicker Park & Old Town, also in Indianapolis
Guacamole en Molcajete (the lava bowl they make it in)
Ingredients:
1 diced avocado
1 1/2 Tablespoon chopped white onion
1/2 teaspoon finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon (for mild) finely chopped serrano peppers
1 1/2 teaspoon (for hot)
2 tablespoons diced plum tomatoes, seeded
1 1/2 Tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 Teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions: 1. Add garlic, Serrano peppers, onion and salt into Mocajete (these can be purchased at the Adobo Grill) or use your favorite bowl
2. Using a wooden spoon or pestle, mash the garlic, Serrano peppers, onion and salt to release their juices.
3. Add diced avocado to molcajete and mix.
4. Add tomatoes, cilantro and lime.
5. Stir in all ingredients and serve with tortilla chips.

Enjoy! We had this at the Adobo Grill and it was wonderful!

Librarian Trading Card -#2

2006-06-11T14:06:00.000-07:00

This photo is from the Model United Nations conference in Chicago in February, 2006. I went with my husband, Steve, and his group of students. We ate at the Berghoff before they closed.

Welcome to my new blog!

2006-06-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

My name is Betty Buenning and I am curently a student in the Dominican Univeristy Summer LIS753 class. In my other life, I am a middle school librarian. I want to start a blog for my 8th grade book club so this is my chance to learn about this.