Another new thing -My Portal

Another new thing to share-if you are a SPPS employee. Check out this website: https://myportal.spps.org

This is a new feature that allows SPPS employees to access lots and lots of things that in the past we spent time trying to get to via numerous SPPPS urls. Now everythink is cozy and organized at one site. To name a few things to now easily access:
Infinte Campus-from home AND school
Urban Planet-teachers' school webpage
Naviance-from home AND school-heck I don't even know what that is . . . yet!
The SCIP plan for the district (I assume) and maybe the individual school's too!
TECH HELP! Yeah!!! That would be for me!
United Streaming
Atomic learning
much much more . . . including the SPPS directory, the 10,000 steps program,SPPS news and more!

I'm impressed! I'm excited!

I should also share how impressed I have been with the wonderful, and fine Information Literacy initiative. It has given me an immense amount of confidence to navigate this new district website and more! THANK YOU to all involved at SPPS and Metronet for this great collaboration!

Public Library guest: Karen Kolb Peterson

Today we did a number of things at our May Metronet Info. Lit. meeting One of the most interesting was the special guest of the Youth Services Coordinator of the Saint Paul Public Libraries. Of course I am a big promoter of our libraries in St. Paul. I have been going to the libraries since I was a child and when the Arlington Branch was located in the current House of Clocks building. Currently I frequent the Rondo Library in Saint Paul. I really love this library.

Have you established your on-line account with the Saint Paul Public Libraries? It really is great and you can do the following:

My Account
Pay Fees Online
Card Pre-Registration
Library Locations
Popular Searches
Online Databases
Other Libraries
MnLINK
Using MnLINK
How are we doing?
What should we buy?
Circulation Policies

Their website is: http://www.stpaul.lib.mn.us/

Check it Out!!!!!

Computer Help? Check this out!!!

On Thursday I took a personal day. Like everyone, I had PLENTY of business to take care of. . . personal as well as professional. You can appreciate and imagine how panicked I was to wake up and find my Dell PC had seemingly ground to a halt! Much of what I needed to do required that the use of my computer. Certainly and without a doubt the MacBook (which is almost always locked away in a secure school spot each night at CPSHS) was a lifeline, as I had taken it home the night before to work with. What to do? Thank God for good friends! My dear friend Ted C. who knows more than a thing or two about computers (tons) suggested that I bring my Dell pc computer to a place I now highly recommend to you. It is General NanoSystems. You can find out more about this company on the web at: www.nanosys1.com

Long story short: A diagnostic test was run (30.00) and it turns out the computer was fine! Of course I was AMAZED when the service guy opened the computer (I have owned it three years) and I saw that it was loaded with dust, dust, and more dust! Suffice to say, when I brought the computer home I promptly and carefully used the right tools to remove the gobs of dust from the computer! The guy that worked with me suggested I add two new (new to me) computer protection software programs to my computer. One is AVG Free-an antivirus and antispyware software for Windows. The other is also free: Windows Defender is "a free program that helps you stay productive by protecting your computer against pop-ups, slow performance and securtiy threats caused by spyware and other potentially unwanted software".

So while I have not yet downloaded these two software programs-I plan to sometime soon! It seems to me that they are just as good as McAfee's. I think Dell and McAfee's must work together to make $$. Should any of you have thoughts on what is the best in terms of computer security-let me know.

But again . . . let me encourage you to check out General NanoSystems. They are located at 3014 University Avenue SE in Minneapolis. Just west of Hubbard Broadcasting/KSTP studios. Their number is 1-612-331-3690!

More on podcasting . . .

NPR also has an npr podcast directory where you can obtain lots of podcasts and this can be found at:

http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php

You can search for podcasts by topic, title, and even the NPR provider (ie MPR). Also there is a Help tab which is very cool in that it clear addresses the many questions people may have regarding podcasts. For example they answer questions such as: What is podcasting? What do I need to hear podcasts? etc.

Check this out if you want to learn more about podcasts . . . and include them in your curriculur content.

Podcasts and politics

Hi all!



I am BLOGGING today! Anne take notice! I thoroughly enjoyed the last Info. Lit meeting regarding podcasts. I think that I even blogged about some time ago about them earlier. Whether the podcasts are audio or video (and audio)-they have been immensely helpful in sorting out, illuminating, underscoring-all things political -especially in what has been a long, exciting, dramatic-Democratic primary. I think that my students have been better able to analyze the Dem's race because of my involvement in the Information Literacy program and the capacity for all stakeholders involved to provide technology support and hardware. Tomorrow students will be listening to the New York Time's Adam Nagourney, Gerry Mullany, Michael Luo and Kate Phillips discuss the '08 presidential race. Check out Politics Points podcasts at http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/ It is abut nine minutes in length.



I cannot emphasize enough the doors that have opened in terms of the use of technology in our classrooms. For the first time-I have especially been surprised at how I can apply that technology to political campaigns every two and four years.



Lastly, Clinton, Obama Ad Wars Heat Up Ahead of Pa. Vote is another great podcast released yesterday by NPR (National Public Radio) which can be found at:



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89779101 The length of that runs 4:35



Have fun!

4 Woodbury students disciplined after drinking photos turn up on Facebook site

Reflecting back about the film I saw last week and the whole idea of "social networking" I am much more aware of information that relates to the internet and the vulnerability of young people. This issue frequently gets highlighted on MSNBC with Chris Hansen's To Catch a Predator shows. I suggest viewing them by checking your local listings or go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10912603/ to view a show or two online. It is amazing to see how many people around the country and from all walks of life, are prowling the internet looking to meet minors with the goal of engaging in sex with them.



Additionally, check out this link:

http://www.twincities.com/washington/ci_8105195

It is regarding some teens in the Twin Cities that decided to do some posting on their facebook accounts.

Thats it for now!

FRONTLINE:growing up online

Colleagues-

Just how radically is the Internet transforming the experience of childhood? This is the question posed by the producers of the latest Frontline special: Growing Up Online that aired tonight on PBS.

I found the show very scary, very dark, very disconcerting. Eating disorders, low self esteem, pain, cyber bullying, cheating, even suicide. How do we teach young people to responsibly interact online? It has been said that the Internet has created the greatest generation gap since rock and roll. It is all very unreal. Having just viewed (and recorded) the film, I need to view it again to truly absorb all I saw and comment further. Below is an article I found in the Boston Globe titled Frontline tackles Internet-driven generation gap by Joanna Weiss of the Globe Staff in the January 22, 2008 edition. It is a good summary in case you missed the show.

"Growing Up Online," the Frontline documentary that airs tonight, starts out sounding alarmist, as well as a few years late. "It's Friday night, and six friends are having a party," a voice-over intones ominously, as teenage boys settle down with their computers to play a first-person-shooter game. "Within minutes, they're locked in battle."

The same gloomy tome is used to describe kids watching YouTube, a boy logging onto MySpace, a group of teens sending text messages. It's the sort of reaction adults probably had when kids first started playing video games, or talking on the phone.

Indeed, "Growing Up Online" takes a parental view, yet it isn't terribly generous to the parents. Yes, many grown-ups are unaware of their children's online doings. But according to Frontline, adults are also barely capable of understanding all of this technology. "My time is over," one teacher laments, and the voice-over later declares the war lost: "It's been said that the Internet has created the greatest generation gap since the advent of rock 'n' roll."

That's a bold statement, and "Growing Up Online" tries to support it with shock-the-parents fodder, much of it assembled from a single, middle-class suburb in New Jersey. There's the seemingly well-adjusted teen who secretly visits websites that encourage anorexia; the high school kids who film themselves drinking on a bus trip, then post the footage on YouTube.

And there are ample interviews with kids who are blasé about their online exhibitionism. At one point, several of them recount a fight in the school cafeteria, recorded on cellphones, and posted online.

"It was pretty good video," one teenage boy muses.

"It kind of made us famous," says one of the girls.

No, they aren't role models for American youth. But Frontline is hard-pressed to tell us how they're different from teenagers since time immemorial: rash, irresponsible, sometimes-belligerent, and excessively proud of their shiny new toys. (One boy boasts of a website called sparknotes.com, which provides condensed versions of the classics. Guess what? The guides are available on paper, too. And we had paper CliffsNotes way back when I was a high school kid.)

Even the most chilling story Frontline presents isn't merely an Internet cautionary tale. Yes, a boy who was bullied, both in person and online, wound up taking his life after researching suicide on the Web. But there's nothing new, alas, about teen suicide or bullying. Teenagers have always had a broad capacity for cruelty; there's a body of film and literature to prove it.

In its most useful moments, "Growing Up Online" tries to parse the differences between then and now, and actually does a fair amount of debunking: Despite widespread fears of sexual predators, we're told, most online sex solicitations come from teens themselves, and are routinely ignored. The film also shows us a few scattered examples of parents and teenagers bridging the gap. When one Goth girl starts posting provocative pictures online under a pseudonym, her white-bread parents flip out at first. But they eventually come to see her Web doings as a benign form of escapism. The relationship is saved.

That's a far more provocative, nuanced way to look at the Internet, and it rings more true: The chief trouble with the cyberspace is that the rules and safeguards have yet to be sorted out. Yes, the Web can amplify social behavior, good and bad, but teens are hardly the only antagonists or victims. And even Frontline has to know this, in the end.

"The computer has become a new weapon in the arsenal of adolescence," the voice-over says at one point. It's a true statement, but it leaves out the rub: Adolescence is the far more dangerous part.

Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. For more on TV, go to viewerdiscretion.net.