Peeking at the lives of others with Flickr

Another site I find myself clicking through for far too long is Flickr. It's been around for a while but more and more "legitimate" users are creating accounts of their own and you might be surprised at the number of official photos and really professional streams that are featured on the site. I just spent twenty minutes clicking through the official White House photostream here.

There was a project I heard about a couple years ago involving Flickr called "Flickr 365" which asked participants to take a picture of something every day for a year and maintain and updated stream of the progress. I've heard it vary - my friend did a project of a picture of herself every day for a year, but I like the variety of 365 pictures of anything. Search "365" in the Flickr search bar and a lot of people's projects will be retrieved.



This could be an interesting project in a classroom (it'd have to be shortened to fit within the semester or school year) where students could maintain their own Flickr account and photostream of pictures they take throughout the year. They could try to stick to a theme or make it more broad. And by the end, they'd have a cohesive project that was entirely their own.

Swaptree: Like eBay without paying

Swaptree.com is like having access to millions of personal libraries where you can trade books, DVDs, CDs, and video games with others who are willing to swap their stuff in exchange for something you have. The only cost involved is shipping which you can do Media Mail when someone requests something of yours.

Here’s how it works: create a user account (for free) and list all the books, DVDs, CDs , and video games that you are willing to send to other people as a trade – this is your “have list.” Next, you create your “want list” of all the media you want to add to your own collection. Swaptree then finds someone who has something that you want and wants something else that you have, and asks both parties if they want to accept or reject the trade. Both users have only two days to agree to the trade and, once they do, they are given the other user’s mailing address. You ship it and once you get your package, you are offered the opportunity to provide positive/neutral/negative feedback on the user you traded with, just like on Amazon.

Unlike Amazon, though, you don't actually have to pay for the item you're getting in the trade - just the shipping. And unlike the library, there are no due dates. It's a great way to rifle through your books/DVDs that you haven't glanced at in years and give them a new home while replacing them with something new that you want to add to your collection!

StumbleUpon

For my Electronic Resources for Youth class, I chose to evaluate the social search engine StumbleUpon, a site that has surfaced as an interesting new way to browse the web. It is a website that retrieves search results tailored to the user’s interests, rated and recommended by others with similar web tastes. StumbleUpon prides itself on combating information overload by pointing users only to the websites matching their personal preferences and interests.

To begin navigating with it, a user would register an e-mail and password on the main page, then decide on a list of preferences. The site’s Toolbar features a “Stumble!” button that the user can click which will randomly generate a list of sites tailored to the user’s preferences and interests. However, the results are not entirely random, but rather machine and user-selected to determine the best and most relevant sites for the user. I selected my preferences to include “crafts” “multimedia” “cooking” and “self improvement” and then clicked the “Stumble!” button. Rather than retrieving a list of search results, StumbleUpon took me straight to my first site. A user can then rate the stumbled upon site with a thumbs up or a thumbs down which will help contribute to the growing community-based ranking system. I could have typed more specific interests – Italian recipes, advanced yoga, projects using recycled materials, etc. Like Google, the search possibilities are endless, but with StumbleUpon, the results are much more personalized.

The video on their "About Us" page gives a good overview.

Web Comics

There is a large selection of comics available on the web and they're downright addictive. Graphic novels and comics engage both visual literacy and reading comprehension. They can attract reluctant readers but as the format becomes more accepted and popular among educators and librarians, all readers are encouraged to check them out!

WIGU is a web comic about an eight year-old boy named Wigu and his family, written by Jeffrey Rowland. He is the Boy King of Space in the Butter Dimension 360, but in real life, he's just a pretty smart kid with an emo teenage sister.

Another web comic I like, probably for older audiences (9th grade and up) is Sam and Fuzzy by Sam Logan. Sam is a worried young adult trying to figure out what to do with his life while Fuzzy, his bear-like friend is always up to no good and causing antics for the both of them. I like the extreme black and white contrast style drawings and while the comedy is often absurd, it is occasionally profound.

And comics are not just for boys! Check out gURL comix, an online library of over 150 web comics drawn by award winning female artists. The comics address issues that are important to teenage girls in a funny, nonjudgmental medium that connects with the reader.

OR, you can just have the students be the artists. Check out this brief step-by-step guide to drawing your own comic strip superhero.