This is the last week for our Teen Summer Cyber Camp! If you have attended any of our other Cyber Camp courses, we hope you have discovered something you've enjoyed. If this is your first Cyber Camp, you might want to take a look at everything we've explored so far!
Today's Cyber Camp is an opportunity for you to look back at the other modules and have fun! Maybe you want to work some more on your personal blog or webpage, play around with Microsoft Publisher, edit some recent photos, or create your own music or video!
And what makes a summer more complete than having fun? Check out some free online games, while you're at it:
It can be a lot of fun sharing pictures online with family and friends, but you might want to consider editing those pictures before you share them!
There are several sites on the web that are free of charge and are loaded with lots of fun features. Most of these sites will have basic features which allow you to crop, resize and rotate. Some sites will allow you to do much more than basic editing.
Photo After Editing
For example, you can make pictures come to life by adding animation, share your photos through other social networking sites, or create posters, postcards, mousepads and more!
Most of the sites require registration and are free, unless you want to upgrade to a paid account to access premium features.
Pixer.us is great for a beginner. It has a variety of features and is very easy to use and understand. Best of all there is no registration required and it is free.
Picnik.com is tons of fun. There is no registration required and it is also free. You can get premium features with a paid (for-fee) account. This site offers a lot of free features such as making scrapbook pages, cards, and collages. You can also add text and animated effects to your pictures with this site.
Fotoflexer.com will allow you to connect to certain online photo-sharing accounts and edit your pictures. This site is easy to use when you stick with the basic features. The great part about Fotoflexer is that it offers advanced features. These features may take a bit of practice to master.
photoshop.com/express/landing.html requires registration, but it’s great because it serves as storage for your pictures. This site is also very basic and easy to use.
Walgreens.com also has a few great features, but it does require registration. You can edit your pictures before sending them to be printed. You can add borders and effects to your pictures or make a request for your picture to be made into a mouse pad.
The possibilities are endless when you are editing your pictures. Have fun!
Have you ever wanted to create your own website? Are you tired of MySpace or Facebook (and the fact that your teachers and parents have their own profiles now) and are looking for a new space? Do you want to share your opinions, dramas, stories, poems, music, or videos? Then check out some of these web publishing tools!
In this week’s Cyber Camp, we’re going to cover:
Online publishing – What is it and why should I care?
Online Publishing: What is it and why should I care? Online publishing is in some ways like print publishing (of magazines, newspapers, books), but the web has expanded how and what kind of content can be accessed. Online publishing also allows almost everyone to create an online presence, to connect with friends and family, to share one’s opinions and talents with the world, and to explore personal interests.
Back in the Dark Ages you might’ve made a homemade magazine or newspaper and gone over to Kinkos and made copies on a Xerox copy machine and then hand-delivered or mailed your awesome opinions and ideas to like-minded people. Fast-forward to today and we live in a world where web and related technical skills are a must-have. If you wanted to, you could broadcast your voice to the world and, in developing an impressive web presence, you can also demonstrate to future employers or college admissions boards the variety of technical, graphic design, and/or writing skills you possess.
If you have not already completed the “Internet Safety” section of Cyber Camp, you might consider doing so. Before creating and publishing your own website, blog, or wiki, you might want to consult with your parents or other adult mentors about your options and safe Internet use.
Blog – Or ‘weblog” refers to a website usually maintained by an individual with regular updates and perhaps additional audio, video, or other multimedia content. Some blogs require software downloaded by users; others are “developer hosted,” meaning they require no software installation.
Wiki – A collection of web pages, which allows anyone to contribute, modify, edit, or reverse content; wikis are often created as collaborative or community websites. Some wikis can be password protected, allowing only authorized users to see, adapt, or change content. Wikis can be used on a free or for-fee basis. The most popular or well-known wiki is Wikipedia!
Free Site-Builders and Web Hosting – There are several free webhosting services, html editors, and website builders available, such as Lycos and Weebly. Some of the services are free, some use positioned advertising within your pages to fund free services, some require downloadable software, and others require monthly fees.
Blogging & Social Networking What’s the big deal about blogging? Check out this YouTube video:
Although Lee talks about Blogger and Wordpress in his video, there are several other free blogging services available, all with different features and functions.
LiveJournal, unlike some of the other blogging tools available, provides both online journaling and social networking features. You can form and join communities based on common interests; send and receive updates on friends and family members; integrate multimedia content into your journal; and make voice and instant messaging updates to your journal. Want to know more? Take the LiveJournal Tour!
With Blogger one user or a group of users can create and add content to the blog. With blogger you can: integrate text, audio, video and images into your blog; manage comments, control who can add content and who can read your blog; and upload text and images from your cell or post photos from Flickr. The Freeman Teen Zone Blog is a blogger blog! For more information, you can take the Blogger Tour.
Twitter is referred to as a “micro-blogging” and social networking site. Twitter allows posts up to 140 characters (just like when you send a text) and you can follow what your friends are twittering and your friends can follow you! What I think is super awesome about twitter: I can post a tweet from my cell!
If LiveJournal, Blogger or Twitter don’t look like what you want (or if you already have an account), you can check out some of these other sites:
Wordpress offers many of the same services as Blogger, but has a few nifty features of its own, like: a free integrated statistics system (a way to track who is viewing your blog); the ability to add tags to your posts and put your posts into categories; and automatic spell check (if you care about that sort of thing).
Insane Journal is sort of like LiveJournal, except “insane” and with fewer bells and whistles.
Vox, also like LiveJournal, offers social networking functions, as well as blogging.
Wikis
As mentioned before, Wikipedia is one of the most popular and best known of public wikis. What makes Wikipedia different from other websites? Well, first, it is a social space and an online knowledge base created, modified and managed by its users. Whether organizing a camping trip, working on a group project for school, or creating a public encyclopedia, wikis can be awesome at bringing multiple people together to accomplish a common goal.
Lee’s instructional video on wikis mentioned several free services available to create your own wiki, including: wetpaint, pbwiki (now known as pbworks), and Wikispaces. Although each provides many of the same features, the look, feel and ease of use is different with each site. Because some of these wiki sites offer free and fee-based wikis, comparing what you can get with a free account on each might help you determine which is best for you.
Free Site Builders and Webhosting Although there are probably a bazillion different tools available to build your own website or that provide free webhosting, two that I have found (and I think are easy to use with fairly impressive results) are: Google Sites and Weebly.
Google Sites advertises itself as “a free and easy way to create and share webpages,” although many of the functions that Google Sites offers (such as controlling who can access your site and who has permission to create, upload or edit content) make the platform function much as a wiki does. Super cool feature: you can make your site searchable with “Google search technology”!
Weebly is an easy to navigate and easily customizable tool for webpage creation. Unlike some of the other tools and sites discussed above, Weebly allows you to integrate your own blog into your website. And, whether or not you want to publish your webpages through Weebly for free, you can always use their site builder and publish your finished product another free or for-fee webhosting service.
Exercises: - Try signing up for an account with one of these services and explore the functions. Again, I would recommend discussing your choices with your parents or other adult mentors before making any of your content “public.”
Or – if you are not in the mood to sign up for an account with one of these services today, publish a comment to this post about something you’ve learned, what looks cool, or whether or not you might want to blog or publish on the web in the future!
Friday, June 12th @ 10:30 am & 2:30 pm I remember going to the school library – every single year – for a “special” library introduction. It was always so boring and I thought the librarians were crazy; I mean, come on, how hard is it to type in keywords and find what you need? I had Google, right?
But then a research project would inevitably be assigned and, for some reason, I couldn’t find what I needed. I wasn’t really sure where to start. I knew the information I needed was somewhere, but typing in keywords wasn’t working for me. Sometimes research seems real easy, but when it comes time to actually do research for an assignment, you might feel in over your head.
In this week’s Cyber Camp, we’re going to cover: 1. Library databases – What are they? Why should I care? 2. Library catalog – What is it? How do I make it do what I want to find what I need? 3. Free web – How is this different from the library databases? How do I determine what is a “good” website for research and what isn’t? 4. Internet safety – What are some ways that I can be safe online?
Library Databases A database is just a really fancy way of describing a bunch of electronic information that has been organized. One of my favorite databases is the Internet Movie Database, a free web resource about movies and television shows.
Library databases are different than IMDB in a few ways: · First, much of the information available in library databases has been pulled from printed resources – meaning that the databases have information that you could (at some place, at some time) have found in a magazine, an academic journal, a reference book, a newspaper, etc. · Second, library databases provide information from trusted (or “authoritative”) sources, making your teachers happy :o) · Third, while anyone can access IMDB, library databases are only accessible to those with a library card.
Helpful Database Terms: Abstract – a brief summary Authentication – process where the database checks to verify that you have permission to use it (asking for your library card number) Citation – smallest amount of information that allows someone else to find the same source you’ve found Full-text – complete content of an article (PDF=image, html = just words) Index – back of the book, system of organizing information access points to get to the information you need Keyword Search – search that matches the exact language used in an article, citation, or abstract Periodical = Journal = Magazine = Serial Subject Search – controlled vocabulary search
Where can I find these databases, you might be asking? From the library website!If you’re on the library’s homepage, you can see a tab across the top labeled Databases. You can choose which database you want in 3 different ways: • By Subject • Alphabetically by the Name of the Database (i.e. Academic Search Complete, Learning Express Library, etc.) • By Journal/Magazine title Most of the time you’ll probably be finding your database by Subject; maybe you have a paper you need to write for Language Arts (check out Literature & Literary Criticism!) or perhaps you just need a newspaper or magazine article to fill out your works cited (check out Magazines & Journals or Newspapers). Looking for databases by Subject can help you with any of these types of questions. Sometimes you might know the name of the journal, magazine or newspaper and just want to see if you can find it @ the Library. For this you’ll search By Journal, entering in the title you’re looking for in the search box. Say, for example, that you’re searching for the New York Times. Once you’ve searched your title, you’ll see a list of what the Library has.
**Remember: Most of the library databases you can access from anywhere you have an internet connection (at home, at work, at school); which means you can potentially do research at home in your pajamas. If you log into a database from outside the Library, you will be asked for your library barcode number (to prove you’re one of us). What a good reason to get a library card! Library Database Exercises:
- Pick one of the databases in a subject that interests you (perhaps history, literature, biographies, science….) and play around with the search functions. - Does the database you chose give you results in full text? Some databases allow you to limit your results just to full-text. What does that mean exactly? Well, imagine you’re doing a Google search for Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Some of the results will give you a review someone has written, where as others just show you pictures of the cover and how much you will pay for a copy of the book. Full-text provides everything included in an article or book (text, pictures, links, etc.). If the database does not provide full text, you'll just see a synopsis and citation. - Does the database you chose have an advanced search feature? What does this feature do – can you tell? Most advanced search features use what are called Boolean operators. What exactly are those? Check out the video below to learn more about Boolean operators:
Library Catalog What exactly is the catalog? The catalog allows you to see what the Library physically has in its buildings (books, audiobooks, movies, music, etc.) and what digital content you can access through the Library website (downloadable ebooks, audiobooks, external websites, etc.).
Where can you find the catalog? From the library website! You can select the link to the catalog or search directly from the homepage. If you click the link to the catalog, the first thing you’ll see are several basic search options, including: keywords, title keywords, author keywords, or subject keywords. My two favorite ways to search are using the Power Search feature and Advanced Search. Power Search is a really great and easy way to browse titles or to get ideas on related subjects. The Power Search is also helpful when you only know part of a title or are not quite sure how to spell something. Power Search also makes it really easy to find what is @ Freeman, what is available on DVD, or what we have just in Spanish.
Advanced Search allows you to use those awesome Boolean operators! When you know an exact title, the author’s exact name, or when you want to limit your results to specific subjects, Advanced Search will keep you from having to sort through a bunch of titles that may or may not have anything to do with want you want.
- Try using the Power Search to find a topic of interest to you (i.e. American history, vampires, botany, etc.). Look at the left hand “Discover” tool while you search. What do you notice? On the right hand side, try limiting your results just to Freeman. Try limiting by language or year of publication. - Think of a Boolean phrase that you can punch into the Advanced Search (i.e. Mexico AND United States NOT Immigration). What do you notice about your results? Try limiting your search results to Freeman or to non-fiction titles only.
The free web is made up of all the documents, sounds, images, movies, text, and other wonderful things freely accessible on the World Wide Web. Therefore, while Library databases are accessible through the web, because they cost money…they aren’t on the “Free Web."
Sometimes teachers or librarians or other adults will tell us about how bad it is to use Google or Wikipedia. I’m here to tell you that using what you’ve found through Google or an article from Wikipedia is NOT bad, you just have to know the right times to use them. If I want to know more about the JONAS television show, for example, I’m probably not going to go to the encyclopedia. I’m going to look at the Internet Movie Database, at Wikipedia, or find the Jonas brothers' homepage through Google.
If I’m doing a research paper, I’m going to want to use the resources available through the Library or from free websites that I know are reliable (unless I happen to be writing a research paper on the Jonas brothers – in that case, I’m probably going to use free web and library resources).
There are a couple of search engines you can use to search for high-quality, trustworthy free websites: Librarians' Internet Index Intute Whenever you are using a free website, it is always a good idea to evaluate the content you come across. You can find really great website evaluation guides online.
- Do a search for something that interests you on Google. Once you’ve picked an interesting site, use this website evaluation guide to determine whether or not you would cite this source or rely on the information you’ve found. - Using the Librarians’ Internet Index or Intute, pick a topic that interests to search. Do the same search on Google. What are the differences or similarities?
Internet Safety I love surfing the web. I love updating my LibraryThing profile and sending messages to my book fiend compatriots. I could spend hours on YouTube watching and listening to music videos. I would rather shop online than go into a store.
Whatever you enjoy doing online, you need to think about what footprints you’re leaving behind – is it really such a good idea to post that picture of yourself online? Would you want your grandmother, a parent, your teacher, the school janitor, or some random, creepy person looking at that picture? Would you want someone looking at that picture 10 years from now when you’re applying for a new job?
There are so many awesome things we can do online, but we need to be aware of how others might use the information we make available. Is it a good idea to post your address? Is it a good idea to friend someone you don’t really know? Is it a good idea to enter a random contest to win a free iPhone advertised on MySpace? One word: no.
There are several sources to learn more about internet safety and how to enjoy the benefits of being online without putting yourself, your friends, or your family at risk.
- Check out the Teen iHCPL post on internet safety or learn more about internet safety from the HCPL Teens Know website. - Take a look at the Safe Teens website, an initiative of the Tech Parenting Group, a non-profit organization focused on the impacts of social technologies.
Join us in the second floor training lab to learn the ins and outs of library research - from using databases and the catalog, to researching smartly on the free web. Space is limited, so register now!
Tired of the humdrum of MySpace and Face Book? Never had an online presence that made you proud? Join us in the training lab to learn more about online publishing! Space is limited, so register now!
Friday, July 18th @ 3:00 pm Flickr, Photobucket, and Picnik...oh my! Join us in the second floor training lab to learn more about online photo editing and sharing! Please bring a floppy disk or flash drive. Space is limited, so register now!
Friday, July 11th @ 3:00 pm Want to learn how to make awesome Powerpoint presentations for school? Join us in the second floor training lab and learn how to manipulate slide layout, insert text and pictures, and use custom animations! Space is limited, so register now!
Friday, June 27th @ 3:00 pm Learn how to create flyers, calendars, posters, and much more with Microsoft Publisher! Need to spruce up some school projects? Join us in the second floor training lab! Space is limited, so register now!
Friday, June 20th @ 3:00 pm Join us in the second floor training lab for an introduction to MS Excel! Participants will be instructed on the basic features needed to begin using this spreadsheet program and will engage in a hands-on exercises. Space is limited, so sign up now!
Friday, June 13th @ 3:00 pm Join us in the second floor training lab to learn the ins and outs of library research - from using databases and the catalog, to researching smartly on the free web. Space is limited, so register now!
Flickr CC: Tony Googles for the Answer to a Reference Question Photo by: ShellyS
Flickr CC: DT Online: Game 2 Photo by: Gamethyme
You can choose which database you want in 3 different ways:
