Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Remember that time I was a technological idiot?

I was so excited to have my computer back that I overdid it on the whole internet thing and used up all the bandwidth my dorm allows for the week in two days. As a result, I'm banned from going on the computer. How silly. To honor my stupidity, here is the lowdown on Teen Tech Week 09 along with some other online and/or gaming information.

Here is a link to the YALSA blog detailing what to do with little to no money and still celebrate Teen Tech Week. It features several podcast type things that I can't listen to because the current computer I'm on is without speakers, but based on the blog post they seem like something worth checking out. There are videos on budgeting, TTW in the school media center, and how to get started if you're a newbie.

Speaking of YALSA, they shared an interesting survey on their blog about teens and their online presence. This reminded me of Laini Taylor's post this weekend about authors and young adults using the internet as a communication tool. Very interesting reads there, go check it out!

I was just having a conversation with someone (or a group of someones) recently about whether or not teen literacy is still declining and whether or not video games are hurting or helping. I feel like it was my Materials for YA class, but I can't be certain, so if you know you had this conversation with me please let me know. Thanks. Anyway, I had this conversation and I still think that video games DO help literacy and it turns out I'm not the only one! That's right, the ALA teamed up with the Verizon Foundation forever ago to determine the impact gaming has on literacy.

BONAS JONAS: Poetry Friday, tricked out tech style. Technically it is a remake of the Beatle's Paperback Writer, updated to say C++ Writer instead. Oh man. BUT since there is no recorded version of it that I know of, I count it as a poem. For your enjoyment, the C++ Writer.








1 comment:

Jill said...

I was just having a conversation with someone (or a group of someones) recently about whether or not teen literacy is still declining and whether or not video games are hurting or helping. I feel like it was my Materials for YA class, but I can't be certain, so if you know you had this conversation with me please let me know.

I'm thinking not, but this is a conversation that we can certainly have in a future YA class.

My own thought (consistent with the blob-shaped text in the center of my model) is that good texts and bad texts (defined however you like) can exist in all media. Just because it's a book doesn't mean it's "good"; just because it's a video game doesn't mean it's "bad." Plus, I think that the types of involvement that some teens have with some games (World of Warcraft, etc) can be pretty cool models for looking at how people relate to texts, use texts to relate to other people, etc.

Btw, thanks for the link to the new Pew study!