NaBloPoMo
Well folks, I've decided to take a run at NaBloPoMo. I know, that probably doesn't sound like a very good idea, given my track record so far on trying to post at least once every week. Posting once a day for the entire month of November is going to be quite the challenge. Oddly enough, it seems to be some strange sense of guilt over not posting weekly that has driven me to try this.
Man, I've got issues.
In principle though, I think it's a great idea. Let's get as many people as we can to write something once a day for a whole month. For all our problems getting kids to read and write, we're still the most literate society that the world has ever seen. Things like this can only serve to help that trend.
And you really can't underestimate the power of the Internet in allowing this to happen. The Internet is very quickly becoming the great leveler. I see kids from all sorts of cultural and societal backgrounds in the library daily using the Internet for all sorts of things with no difficulty at all. A lot of these are kids who will never have Internet access at home, but they're still perfectly comfortable navigating the online world. As long as we continue to provide open access and make strong efforts to eliminate the digital divide, this will continue to grow.
I know a lot of people in my profession take issue with providing Internet access, and somehow see the kids playing Runescape or hanging out on MySpace for three hours as a waste of time and resources. But think about it. The kids have to read and write to use those sites. Maybe grammar and spelling go out the window, but they're communicating. And who are we to say that grammar and spelling have gone out the window? Maybe they're just changing. After all, look at what's already made it into our common parlance from the Net: lol, omg, pwn, w00t... heck, even blog!
So let's all get over ourselves and enjoy the free-for-all. Happy NaBloPoMo everyone!
Man, I've got issues.
In principle though, I think it's a great idea. Let's get as many people as we can to write something once a day for a whole month. For all our problems getting kids to read and write, we're still the most literate society that the world has ever seen. Things like this can only serve to help that trend.
And you really can't underestimate the power of the Internet in allowing this to happen. The Internet is very quickly becoming the great leveler. I see kids from all sorts of cultural and societal backgrounds in the library daily using the Internet for all sorts of things with no difficulty at all. A lot of these are kids who will never have Internet access at home, but they're still perfectly comfortable navigating the online world. As long as we continue to provide open access and make strong efforts to eliminate the digital divide, this will continue to grow.
I know a lot of people in my profession take issue with providing Internet access, and somehow see the kids playing Runescape or hanging out on MySpace for three hours as a waste of time and resources. But think about it. The kids have to read and write to use those sites. Maybe grammar and spelling go out the window, but they're communicating. And who are we to say that grammar and spelling have gone out the window? Maybe they're just changing. After all, look at what's already made it into our common parlance from the Net: lol, omg, pwn, w00t... heck, even blog!
So let's all get over ourselves and enjoy the free-for-all. Happy NaBloPoMo everyone!
Comments
I think you're absolutely right about library web access. For us to assume we know what a teenager should be spending their time doing while on the web is the sort of adult arrogance that we all swore we'd never fall victim to when we were teens.
Every time a kid opens a web page, no matter what we think, they're getting a slightly broader view of the world, and that's very rarely a bad thing.