Behind the Locked Door, part three – #ALA12 and beyond

When you’re on a “locked door” committee, you don’t get a lot of time to experience an ALA conference. Why? Because from 1:30-5:30 on Saturday and Sunday you’re in your locked room, with your committee, talking about the nominated books. That’s if you’re lucky! Some committees meet all day.

Remember the Link

Here are a few links I loved over the past few weeks.  They’re worth checking out:

• Google Graveyard, Meet Microsoft’s Morgue http://t.co/DIqBnXg5 (very interesting look at what both companies have tried & given up on)
• iPads more fragile than expected and other lessons from first year of Zeeland high schools’ iPad program http://t.co/IPI5YdOL
• What happens to all those old video games stuck on floppy disks http://t.co/NHEjuwCd (ties right into my thinking about the importance of personal online archiving)
• Professors Put Textbooks Online to Reduce Costs: http://t.co/nv31EkNZ
• Copyright reform needs to happen: a DPLA would be such a great research help! http://t.co/iVDPPYHS
• 12 Essential Social Media Cheat Sheets  http://t.co/AIW9iXLG (particularly useful as you while away the remaining summer vacation)
• Not every student has a smart/cell phone: http://t.co/30YLJXDT (what is your school doing about this?)
• What does Khan Academy need? http://t.co/LQL9CwXw
• My Education in Home Schooling http://t.co/fE5m7EBB (very good points re: one-size-fits-all schooling – how can schools combat this problem?)

Lost Literacies

Yesterday while going through my RSS feeds I saw this headline: Cursive slowly scribbled out of N.J. curriculums as computer skills gain value in schools.  It’s not news (the article was published on June 17th) but for whatever reason, some one (I can’t remember who) posted the link.

Thoughts from #ALA12 – the tools

Having had a few days to decompress and re-revisit my notes, here are the tools I’ll be playing with/exploring over the summer:

ReadCube
Mendeley
Muse
FreeMind

I’ll also be musing over these:

Jason Scott’s Archive Team
MITH (Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities)
Salman Rushdie’s Digital Life
Personal Digital Archiving Conference

Feel free to add any Cool Tools or Tips you’ve heard about and think worthy of some summertime musing.