Introducing the Book

The BOOK? On a site about Web 2.0? Before we get too serious on this site lets have some fun! This wonderful little video on YouTube is about the discovery of the book in medieval times and should be watched by all enquiry desk librarians. I'm wondering if I could get into one of my teaching sessions....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjVeRbhtRU

Video about Web 2.0

A number of blogs are reporting on a very interesting and useful video hosted on YouTube, by Michael Wesch of Kansas State University. In a few minutes it manages to demonstrate the importance of how the web is developing in the Web 2.0 era. Find it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&eurl=

Google Fun

For a bit of fun you can now compare the popularity of one keyword or phrase against another via GoogleFight http://www.googlefight.com/or GoogleBattle. http://www.googlebattle.com/The little graphics make this quite entertaining. Maybe we can use this to help students understand about use of different keywords to describe the same thing. e.g. murder versus homicide. Thanks to Miguel Guhlin for drawing attention to this.

DEMOS Report

The importance of the school sector in the changes being brought about by Web 2.0 is likely to be a recurrent thread in our discussions.
The influential thinktank DEMOS have recently published a pamphlet called Their Space : education for a digital generation. http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/theirspace
Written from the perspective of the young learner the insights can inform us about the value of the new media, how they use them and, I guess, challenge us to adapt our teaching approaches in schools and throughout education.