Contributors Michael Stephens

I have a new post up at ALA TechSource: http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2009/09/just-in-time-for-back-to-school.html Since I started teaching at Dominican, I’ve been requiring students to blog, aggregate RSS, explore Facebook, try out Twitter, and engage in many other Web 2.0 interactions. Recently, I heard from a former student, who proclaimed that “Most of the LIS students I keep in touch with I’ve met in your classes, and it’s all because of social networking websites.” At other LIS schools, I’ve seen similar courses or use of the tools spread out across the curriculum either in the hybrid or online model. This can be beneficial–technology should not […]

Great food for thought from Clive Thompson at Wired, where he examines a recent study on student writing: “I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization,” she says. For Lunsford, technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions. The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, […]

We’re very happy at TTW to be hosting The Young Librarian Series. Check out the video interview between Series Founder Leah (the Librarian) White and Justin Hoenke, Teen Librarian at the Cape May County Library. Also, here’s Leah’s introductory video that introduces her project: The Young Librarian Series #1 from leah white on Vimeo. Please check out the site!

Corporations have The No A**hole Rule, but the motivation and measurement in a for-profit is always the bottom line. The a**hole in the office makes a lot of money, but holds everyone else back with toxic behavior. Fire him, and everyone else steps up their game and increases earnings. Profit provides a reason to hire, fire and take action. Libraries, like most non-profits, deal more in intangibles and don’t look to the balance sheet for guidance. Michael Stephens has used the phrase “kindness audit” most publicly, and several other people have proposed the idea to me recently as well. I […]

Beginning this Fall semester, Michael Stephens and myself (Kyle Jones) began piloting an open source learning management system (LMS) built on WordPress Multi User (WPMU) and BuddyPress.  This post explains our history with WPMU, the move to BuddyPress, and some of Michael’s initial thoughts on the pilot. By TTW Contributor Kyle Jones http://thecorkboard.org @thecorkboard