"FINAL" Thoughts

This past week looking at the OPAC’s seemed a lot like buying a new car.  They all had their promotional material and some had more bells and whistles than others, but you really had to look at each feature to get an overall comparison.  I chose to compare my school’s current system, Companion’s Alexandria, to Follett’s Destiny.  For me this was a real life potential change.  On May 16^th a representative from Follett will be coming to my school district to meet with all the librarians and IT people. 

After talking to 2 of the town’s school librarians, their main concern is professional development since only 2 of the 5 librarians were even in their positions when the move to Alexandria occurred.  Those 2 librarians never received formal training when the OPAC was first set-up.  While the support staff at Alexandria is always available, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it doesn’t take the place of formal training.  The manual is a huge 4 inch thick book, but with limited time available, it is not always intuitive in finding the information you are looking for.  Currently, the consensus seems to be that this OPAC is being underutilized. 

Another factor that I considered in my final paper was an issue facing our school system.  Next month there will be a vote at town meeting regarding an override question to be placed on the ballot for a new Glover Elementary School.  One of the main factors that the opposition has targeted is taxpayer cost.  While changing to a more expensive OPAC is a miniscule amount in comparison, it shows financially responsibility on behalf of the school system to be conservative with their budget spending. 

Finally the biggest difficulty for me was posting the final paper to the class wiki.  My Appendix C for some reason did not like where the headings “Alexandria” and “Destiny” were placed.  They looked to be in the correct spot during the editing, but when I tried to preview the document the two headers were shifted to the left and there was no longer proper spacing between them.  After multiple attempts to convert the document to an HTML file and various other creative attempts to correct the justification both in the wiki and outside of it, I came to fall back on some wise words that I found in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tool for Classrooms by Will Richardson.  I will leave you with The Wiki Prayer… 

Please grant me the serenity to accept the pages I cannot edit,

The courage to edit the pages I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

I chose serenity….. and in doing so.…hopefully.….I showed some wisdom!

Children & Internet Safety

            When thinking of internet safety, over sharing of information immediately comes to mind.  No matter your age, I think sometimes we forget that the internet while exciting and fun can also be a dangerous place, where sharing too much information can get you into trouble.  This is especially true when children and teens navigate a world that has become second nature to them.  They are often more the experts than their parents…that is until it comes to online safety.  The eye rolling often begins as kids hear the reminders about being cautious.  I found a few sites that I thought were good reminders to have fun but to keep your guard up.

            The first site Think Before You Post shows a video clip about Sarah, a teenage girl who posts questionable content without thinking about her audience.  In this clip, Sarah is appalled when strangers come up to her on the street and want to know what color her underwear is today.  While something at home may seem like an inside joke to friends, this information by other can be seen as sexual or provocative in nature.  Sarah certainly didn’t mean for people at the mall to recognize her and she started to feel uncomfortable.  This video does a nice job of showing the scope of readers that a posting can reach.

5-sites-that-promote-internet-safety-for-kids is a site that provides just that...5 great sites.  It acts as a road map for online safety.

The site YourSphere How To Protect the Online Photos, Identity and Reputation of You and Your Children – Watermark Them! offers kids and parents some protection of their on line photos through watermarking.  Watermarking makes it harder for others to just point, click, and copy your photos.  It offers some protection to your online photos.

Netsmartz is a great resource for parents, kids, and educators that discusses various issues associated with the internet such as  blogging, cell phones, cyber bullying, gaming, predators, revealing too much, and social networking.  Teens talk about their experiences with various issues when interacting on line with others.  Hearing about these issues through video clips told by other teens makes the warnings seem more real.  This site also offers a wealth of advice on internet safety in general.

Another video clip Internet Safety PSA -- Instant Messaging  shows an interaction with a smart teen and an online predator.  This teen knows exactly how to handle the situation.  

 Teenangels is a site that empowers teens to become specially trained guardians that help promote safe online behaviors within their real life community.  They even offer an online cyber communications checklist or netiquette and approved safe sites for kids.

Internet Safe Surfing Tips for Teens is a website by Teens Health that talks about safe surfing tips for teens.  How to naviagate the online world can be tricky, but these reminders can help define what a good rule of thumb is generally when it comes to your virtual safety.

            The last site YouTube - Think You Know is a video clip.  This 8 minute video gives an accurate portrayal of some children’s online sharing of information.  The video entices its audience with its popular musical accompaniment and question and answer session with children.  It shows how some children are more careful about their safety in the real world than they are on-line.  Here Becky puts up a sign on her front lawn with her personal information and attracts all kinds of attention as a result.  This video while creepy does an amazing job of portraying the effects of this type of sharing by showing real world similarities.

Unfortunately, once you give out information, there is no way to get it back and you don’t know how others will use it.  In the wrong hands your information could be used by predators, scammers, or even cyber bullies.  Take control of your online presence and stay safe.  Remember with personal information…less is more.