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[|Spaghetti Book Club] This site is for grades k-12 that enjoy reading and reviewing books. The site is categorized by title, authors, school groups, literacy links and clubhouse. The books listed on the site are books that the members have read and not a list of all authors or books. All section links are in alphabetical order and easy to navigate. Unfortuanately, two sites are not presently working which are clubhouse and literacy links. In order to participate on the site an individual must be a member. Spagehetti Book Clubs sells membership to classes, districts, afterschool programs an libaries. In order to get a price quote, you must email the organization. This site supports literacy in the following ways: encourage readers to read and support reading and writing skills.

[|LitLinks]   LitLinks is a website created by Bedford/ St. Martin's Press. It is basically a database of links to resources about different authors. You can browse their list of authors or search for a particular author. For each author the site has a brief biography, list of published works, links to other sites about the author, and a list of Bedford/ St. Martin's press titles that include information on that author.

The site is useful for high school and college English teachers and students. Teachers could use it to get background information before teaching an author's work. Students could use it as a jumping off point for doing research on a particular author. The site includes both contemporary and canonical authors, and the number of links varies depending on the prestige of the author. While the site is user-friendly and easy to navigate, there is no way for users to post comments or other content. This is definitely a Web 1.0 resource. There is also no "About" link on the page or any way to determine the authority of the information presented. Another weakness of the site is that you can only search by the author's name; you can't search by genre, time period, nationality, etc. The list of authors is limited and even some well-known authors (such as Mary Shelley) are not listed. This site is most useful as a starting point for students to research online on an author. Teachers could point their students to LitLinks to help them focus their research and find quality information online.

[|Ning]

Ning is a tool that allows you to create and/or join a social network. It connects people with similar interests. For example if you click on the "school" tag, you will find a social network called TeacherlibrarianNing. You can join or just explore the network. Joining allows you to use more of the features. It is a mashup of features: posting and tagging Like DE.LIO.US ,videos like UTUBE, photos like FLICKR, discussions like WEBCT.

The social network can be broken down further into subcategories. In the teacher librarian ning there are different groups, for example, high school librarians. Here the groups discuss and share information. There is a lot of interactivity for users to assess other features.

It is age appropriate for any age, although it is best suited for 5 grade and up. Anyone younger than this would have a hard time conceptualizing all the functions and manipulation would be an issue.

It isn't particularly user friendly for signing up and creating your own social network, as the user needs to explore its features. Joining a network is relatively easy and allows you to participate in the network. You can choose to explore the various social networks and see what appeals to you. You can access the social networks that may interest you by tagging it. The tags make it easy to navigate between the social networks. The tags also allow you navigate between the features once you are within a particular network.

Ning allows the exchange of information, subject specific, in a multi-media format. This can support literacy in many ways. A teacher or students can present information in the various formats. For example, a biology teacher could have a group on global warming and include photos of the ice caps or graphs or video clip of scientists discussing the topics. The RSS feature allows you to upload current information on the topic of interest.

[|Twitter] To access this site the user needs to join and it's free to create an account. It is a microblogging site where people post information about what they're doing at any given time. Rather than long blog posts, Twitter posts are short like text messaging. Most users use it to keep in touch with friends but it's also useful to share news and updates about events such as the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. We read about a man who lived close to the Minneapolis bridge and watched it collapse from his roof, and many other very short messages. The LA Fire Dept. also uses it to inform the press and residents as to any problems in the area. Twitter also has its own lingo. It basically has phrases to use to get certain information. Twitter is interactive, either by texting or on the webpage. This is a Web 2.0 tool where all the content is user-created The user must decide how he wants to connect to each individual on this site, and he can also twitter many people at one time. Students may want to use this site to communicate when working collaboratively, but it does not seem to have any other educational value. It is very user friendly and is easy to navigate. This would be a site used mostly by teenagers.