Presentation to the Region 10 Library Summit on August 17, 2012. I attempt to persuade and empower school librarians to teach students how to glean good information and discard the bad in the fast-moving environment of Twitter.

1. How librarians can teach and advocate use of
Social Media to promote Digital Citizenship and
Information Literacy

2.  Persuade participants that all librarians must
play a role in teaching about Social Media as
an information source
 Give concrete lesson ideas that tie the duties
and responsibilities of librarians to teaching
social media
 Provide some thought provoking conclusions
and questions that will result in innovative
practices this year and beyond

3.  As of 2011, 80% of all US teens used social
media
 For each year prior, this percentage
increased between 5 and 8 percent
 This means approximately 90% are now
connected to Facebook, Twitter or both
Data from “Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Media Sites.” Pew Internet
and American Life. 2012
http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Presentations/2012/June/Teens
%20Kindness%20Cruelty_NCMEC_WorkingGroup_talk_Lenhart_060512_PDF.
pdf

4. Not much, unless you consider:
 Value systems and world views
 Sexual politics and relationship
advice
 Trying out new identities
 Gossip, rumor and trendy humor

5.  Social rewards-65% say social
networking makes them feel
better about themselves
 Sense that they would miss out on
something if they are not
connected

6.  Over 50% ban it completely
 Most emphasize prevention of negative online
behaviors
◦ Sexting
◦ Cyberbullying
◦ Privacy concerns
◦ Inappropriate communication between teachers and
students
 While these are valid concerns, the negative
approach serves to increase students‟ feeling
of disconnect between school and real life.

8. From easy to more challenging:
1. Teach use of Twitter as information source
and how to cite a Tweet
2. Teach determining reliability of information
3. Teach more advanced skills such as
analyzing a Twitter feed on a topic and
drawing conclusions
4. Teach about online participation, Digital
Citizenship and „Infotention” skills

9. Begin the entry in the works-cited list with the
author‟s real name and, in parentheses, user name,
if both are known and they differ. If only the user
name is known, give it alone.
Next provide the entire text of the tweet in
quotation marks, without changing the
capitalization. Conclude the entry with the date and
time of the message and the medium of publication
(Tweet). For example:
Athar, Sohaib (ReallyVirtual). “Helicopter hovering
above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” 1 May
2011, 3:58 p.m. Tweet.

10. The date and time of a message on Twitter reflect the reader‟s time
zone. Readers in different time zones see different times and,
possibly, dates on the same tweet. The date and time that were in
effect for the writer of the tweet when it was transmitted are
normally not known. Thus, the date and time displayed
on Twitter are only approximate guides to the timing of a tweet.
However, they allow a researcher to precisely compare the timing of
tweets as long as the tweets are all read in a single time zone.
In the main text of the paper, a tweet is cited in its entirety (6.4.1):
Sohaib Athar noted that the presence of a helicopter at that hour
was “a rare event.”
Source: http://www.mla.org/style/handbook_faq/cite_a_tweet

11. Keller, Jared (jaredbkeller). “Either
there‟s more plagiarism than ever, or the
internet is making it significantly easier
to ferret out „lapses in judgement.‟ Or
both.” 10 August 2012, 3:34p.m.
Tweet.

13.  DFW Tornados of April 3,
2012: My story
 The Apple Screw Hoax of
August 8, 2012
• Gabby Douglas Hair
„Controversy‟

14.  Sunrise in California: Hoax generators in
Sweden post fake internal email from Apple
with pictures and schematics of screw to
Reddit
 Spreads virally via Reddit to blogs and then
Twitter
 Mainstream news Websites including Yahoo
and Wired pick up story by Wednesday evening
 Though Wired questions accuracy, rumor
thrives and Twitter and millions believe story

15. Wired Magazine: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/if-theres-a-
screw-theres-a-way-custom-screws-wont-stop-the-diy-community/
A Wednesday posting on Reddit shows an asymmetrical screw, allegedly designed by
Apple, that would be impossible to remove with tools currently available on the market.
While the authenticity of the screw is in question, and while such a screw would
certainly slow down the device dissection efforts of average users, no one should fear
that any specially designed screw would keep out serious DIYers for long.
Wired reached out to iFixit co-founder Kyle Wiens to ask his opinion on the legitimacy
of the design. According to Wiens, the design is a bit too far-fetched: “My gut feel is
that this isn’t from Apple. The threads are unrealistic, and I suspect that a head like that
is too complex to use as a tool head. Existing tool designs tend to be simple because
the head needs to withstand a fair amount of torque.”
There’s also the issue of price. “If this is an Apple design, it
looks like it would be expensive to manufacture. Apple uses tiny
screws, and that’s a very complex screw head,” Wiens said,
adding in an email, “Tiny + Mechanically Complex = Money.”

17.  Most people rush to defend the perceived
victim, but rush to criticize big powerful
corporations
 Media outlets can either get to truth or fan the
flames of rumor
 After a couple of days, the truth usually
comes out, but many never learn it, because
they initially believe it and never investigate
later.

18.  Teens and young adults react quickly to
rumors and fast-developing situations
 Schools need to teach them to pause and
analyze because this behavior does not come
naturally
 Not only is it about critical thinking, but
impulse control

19. Essential Reading: Net Smart by Howard
Rheingold

20. 1. Attention
2. Crap Detection
3. Participation
4. Collaboration
5. Network Smarts

21. Avoiding Mindfulness and
Focus and goals
distraction Metacognition
• Structure class • Thinking about • Reward for
time thinking and focus and help
what is students set
important goals

22. Triangulate
Search terms Skepticism
Sources
• search for • Don‟t believe • Need 3 sources
“critique of” immediately to validate a
and don‟t stop and think like a rumor
with one detective including
search someone or
something that
checks facts

23.  Start with simple „like‟ and comment level
participation
 Curation as teaching and learning tool and is
related to Crap Detection
◦ Haven‟t libraries always been about curation?
 Teach students to “assume good will.” This is
in counterbalance to Crap Detection

24. Librarian Make rules Model
hosts virtual clear at expected
community beginnning behavior

25.  Librarians stand to benefit from building a
network and bonding with each other
 Most successful networkers bridge multiple
networks
 Networking behaviors can be modeled and
taught

26.  Can we tell students to limit their search to
trusted library resources?
 Do we want to make our library users
dependent on us or make them independent
critical thinkers?
 Can we get by just teaching search, citation,
and other information literacy skills?
 Can we ban Websites students use such as
Wikipedia, Twitter, etc.

27.  It‟s difficult to justify banning social media in
schools
 It‟s imperative that librarians involve themselves
in Social Media enough to understand the new
reality of how young people get information and
develop belief systems
 It‟s also very important that schools teach “Net
Smart” behavior frequently and no one but
librarians will likely fill this void.