Google Wave

Our Coordinator of Instructional Technology, David Jakes, very recently told us about Google Wave.

He's a *lot* more technically savvy than I am with this stuff, and he is *way* excited about it. Because I'm not anywhere near as knowledgeable about web 2.0 applications as he is, I have to admit, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. But Ryan Bretag, his counterpart at GBN has discovered a nice guide from Mashable to this innovative new tool, which I will share with you: Google Wave: a Complete Guide

Young Adult Eating-Disorder Literature

I was really interested to read a blog post from Tara Parker-Pope on the New York Times website that talks about the inherent problem of literature that deals with eating disorders potentially (inadvertently) promoting it. I had heard about the "pro-ana" websites and chat rooms before, but I hadn't really thought about the impact of YA literature specifically.

Here's a link to Parker-Pope's blog post.

Wikipedia 1 , Journalism 0

I was amused but not terribly surprised to see that an Irish student was able to dupe media outlets by altering a Wikipedia article on composer Maurice Jarre by inserting a really schlocky fake quotation from Jarre. The quotation was specifically crafted to attract media outlets reporting on his death. Wikipedia caught the fraudulent statement quickly, as it was made without attribution and done almost immediately after the composer's death. But not quickly enough to keep the Guardian and other sources from looking *really* stupid.

Here's a link to the story from Macleans.

Here's a link to the Guardian readers' editor, Siobhain Butterworth's take on the incident.

Free Movies from Canada & Elsewhere

Got this idea from Joyce Valenza, who linked to snagfilms, a free documentary resource. But after seeing an excellent documentary on professional wrestler Bret Hart, I wanted to share the National Film Board Of Canada's wonderful website, which is *full* of high-quality video.




Update 5/22/09: Joyce Valenza is the biz! She just blogged about PBS Video's new web site/ film database. Very cool!