Here’s an interesting article about a debate team at St. John’s University holding a debate in the virtual world: Chronicle of Higher Ed Article
Apparently it’s not an “official” competition, but if it’s successful it could lead to more of these kinds of things. I can see it being particularly useful for getting debate teams together from different parts of the world without having to travel.
Would you voluntarily submit to being instructed about a topic where you already consider yourself to qualify as an expert in that subject matter? If you did – or were forced to – you would probably find it incredibly boring or tune it out all together. Well, a new report may help to explain why some students react this way to the academic library’s information literacy education program.
Check out Steven B.’s excellent article about the 2008 ECAR Study and its findings regarding student learning styles and proficiencies with technology. It’s a very good read.
Yesterday Michael Stephens linked to a very thought-provoking video about students today and how they relate with technology. The main emphasis is on how that relates to how they’re being taught in school. Much of the content in the video is students communicating their answers (or parts of their answers) to the question “What is it like being a student today?” This question was asked on a Google Doc and 200 students collaborated in creating the document that led to this video.
Web 2.0, social networking, the social web… all different terms for the Internet phenomenon that is promoting greater interactivity and connectivity between people of similar interests. It’s also my term for what’s going on in Lake Tawakoni State Park in Texas. With SPIDERS!
Tonight on the way home from work I was listening to NPR’s All Things Considered and heard this story about spiders in a Texas state park. The spiders have teamed up to build a huge communal web that covers some very large trees and stretches for several hundred yards.
Instead of relying on what could be caught in their individual webs, these spiders have created what amounts to one gigantic web. The main trees in question form a curve around a pond which is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. They said that when you walked by these spiderwebs, you could hear this buzzing sound from the mosquitoes trapped in the webs. The spiders were eating so well that they weren’t getting to all the new mosquitoes getting caught in their webs.
Testimonial to the benefits of the Social Web! 
I was recently told about a study reported in ScienceDaily (taken from a news release by the American Academy of Neurology) that showed that the damage to parts of the brain that results from exposure to lead (whether through occupational exposure, etc.) was significantly lower in people who read more. Reading helps build synapses and connections within the brain that help offset the effects of some kinds of brain damage.
As I was talking to my fellow librarians, we came to the humorous conclusion that reading books can help prevent damaged brain cells resulting from excessive drinking. Or at least you know you’re safer if you read. We envisioned a “Beer for Books” program to help promote reading! 
So… want to justify those beers/martinis/orange spiced meads? Read more books! 
You’ve probably heard that the Simpsons Movie is coming out this summer. Specifically, this Friday. The website has lots of fun things, including making your own Simpsons-style avatar and, of course, games. Seems like every movie has a website where you can play games related to the movie.
Anyway, there’s also a related website where you can upload a photo and “simpsonize” it. The website is pretty busy and often slow. I had to try several times just to get the page to load. Also, I haven’t been successful in saving the image I created or even emailing it to myself. I had to to a PrintScreen and paste the image into MS Paint and cut out just the image. Anyway, that’s what’s displayed here. I had to work hard to find a picture that would work. It has to be a closeup of the head and shoulders, with decent contrast and a big enough size. They tell you all that on the site, though.
If you Simpsonize a photo of yourself, please comment on my post here with a link to your new picture.