What Does This Mean to Me, Laura?

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scary words–> CASCADING STYLE SHEETS! <–scary words

Are you scared? Cowering in a corner? (Okay, I suspected you weren’t.) How about uncomfortable? A teeny bit?

If you’re a regular user of CSS, you probably think I’m a bit nuts. If you’re not, you might feel intimidated by the idea of using Cascading Style Sheets instead of those old <font> and <b> tags in your web pages. Or, you might not even know what Cascading Style Sheets are, except that they’re just one more thing you’re supposed to know about and don’t have the time to learn.

In Part I, I’m actually not going to talk so much about about what CSS is, as much as why you need to make the time to learn it. “What” and “why” are really difficult to explain separately, so no doubt there will be some intermingling here. But I’ll give it a shot.

Why should *I* learn CSS, Laura?

Power. Lots of it. [Insert evil laugh here.] With CSS, you have extremely granular control over how your web pages look; much more power than using old HTML. With CSS, you can change things you never could with just HTML–positioning elements on the page in particular. With much more finesse to boot. You also get, at no extra charge, the ability to manage how EVERY page in your site looks from one central location. It’s like the display control panel for your entire site. No more changing inline code on every #@$! page of your site when the library’s logo colors change and the whole site has to match the new color scheme.
Standards-compliance. I covered this in a separate post, but it’s worth bringing back up here: using those old tags immediately makes your site’s code non-compliant with current coding standards. Sorry, there are no exceptions. As soon as you start putting those old tags in, game over. Your site now immediately qualifies for 1) Non-professional status and also likely for 2) Visitor frustration, especially if they are coming to your site with a more obscure browser and/or a mobile device.
Accessibility. Want your site to be clear and understandable to those visitors using adaptive software, such as many of the blind and visually impaired use? The first thing you have to do is learn CSS. CSS gets a lot of those styling instructions off the individual pages (remember the “control panel” I mentioned earlier?) and out of the way for them.
HTML 4.01 is dead. It has been since 1999. That’s right–CSS has been around for 10 years. It’s time to move on. If you’re still using old HTML tags to do your dirty work, you’re basically using zombie code.

Coming up next week in Part II: What is CSS and a gentle introduction to using it

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Several weeks ago I had the privilige of attending the Virtual Worlds: Museums, Libraries and Educators conference held in the virtual world of Second Life. One of the sessions I attended was “Cyborg Learning: How to Engage Young Minds” by Dallas McPheeters, Instructional Technology Liaison for Tucson Unified School District. Because there were hearing-impaired attendees at the conference, many sessions also had full transcripts available. I cherry-picked some of the salient bits from his presentation and saved some here. Interesting stuff and applicable to library culture.
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The present generation is disengaged and education has become a game to win by navigating and maneuvering within the system. There is a disconnect between learning and learners. We want to engage young minds or we wouldn’t be here. What impact is technology having on education in the 21st century and can we engage the minds of the next generation? This question has been the subject of much study during the past three decades, both in the United States and Europe.

The focus of these studies falls mainly in one of two schools of thought. The first school of thought will be labeled the Technofascists who view technology a wonderful tool to use in the education process and therefore promote its spread by way of legislative control. The second school of thought will be labeled the Technophobes who fear the rapid spread of the use of technology in education and therefore try to slow its spread by way of legislative control. Notice that both sides wish to control technology but for different reasons. And both sides view technology as other, alien, and something to be governed or controlled.

But a third view has emerged among the new generation of technology natives that does not view technology as “other. ” This new generation sees technology as an extension of human identity; hence, the label “Cyborg” is applied indicating a kind of hybrid of human and technology – a Cybernetic Organism. Rather than technology being applied to human identity, technology actually becomes part of the human expression itself. Thus the clear boundary between man and machine is being blurred by the technological revolution and to legislate such a revolution becomes irrelevant in the view of Cyborg culture.

The two traditional schools of thought among the technology immigrants react differently to the blurring of cultural boundaries caused by the technological revolution of the postmodern – and posthuman as Cyborgs believe – world in which we live. And as we continue to spin toward an unknown future, the older generations of technology immigrants seem to be frantically racing to define what may be beyond definition; even bigger than the whole itself.

We are living in a conundrum whose solution is not possible with the old formulas. Today we are living in what has been described as a “culture of uncertainty” with each domain of knowledge increasing faster than we can learn it.

Children today – as natives to technology – are growing up in a world where boundaries are blurred. Within the present and politically-correct society, gender distinctions are in question. We understand that Race no longer has a scientific basis. The corporate hierarchy and rank that industrialized the world is being replaced by project oriented, team playing personnel whose “roles are ill-defined and shifting.” Even our physical human identity is blurred by the introduction of virtual worlds enabling participants to engage in multiple realities both physical and imagined. Clearly delineated time boundaries are blurred by asynchronous communication tools. The Internet brings information to us that is no longer boxed in by time and space.

And according to Thomas Friedman, author of New York Times bestselling book, The World is Flat, says we are at the “end of the beginning.” Friedman believes we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg compared to what lies before us. According to Friedman’s research, we are embarking on a shift of a magnitude that boundary-restricted minds are unable to conceive or manage.

Those insisting on going back to the good ole’ days of clearly defined boundaries (we could call this group the fence builders) see the coming changes as other and therefore uncomfortable and difficult to navigate with the customary tools of the modern age they thought they knew. These technophobes perceive technology as outside, apart, and foreign to human existence (though some acknowledge technology’s added convenience). Technophobes don’t mind progress as long as it fits in a box and can be taught in the traditional way. Yet even the technofascists differ little in their final assessment despite their desire to increase technology’s use in education. Technofascists still seek control in order to manage or ‘box in’ the increased use and usefulness of new technologies.

Technofascists embrace technology. Technophobes would slow technology. Yet neither is relevant because both seek to box technology in. However, within the technology sphere, a third view is emerging among the natives of today’s cyberculture. These Cyborgs will not accept our three dimensional, spatial/temporal existence as an end in itself. Only the posthuman, neo-native Cyborg can adequately express the new technology-based hybrid identity and educators must facilitate the Cyborg’s introduction into this boundary-less realm.

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(In case you missed the memo, a lot of folks have replace the label “Web 2.0′ with “social media.” Probably a better, more descriptive label in my opinion. )

I’ve been around the social media block a few times. I was using Twitter long before it hit the mainstream. I’ve experimented with bunches of obscure social applications. I’ve done a lot of presentations about social media and libraries. I’ve talked about the cool end of this stuff, and occasionally I’ve even gotten to talk about what’s not so cool. Today, I’m going to share a few things I’ve learned along the way. (And I bet you already know most or all of these, too.)

Social media is WORK. Yes, it can be fun and productive and useful. Some days, all of those flowery adjectives are the frosting, not the cake. Even I get tired of social apps! You will, too. It takes time and effort to get to the point where social media pays off.
Social media makes you BETTER at work. Anyone who looks at you funny while you’re twittering, updating your Facebook status, editing a YouTube video or attending a meeting in Second Life needs to catch a ride on the Clue Bus. People who can function effectively in the social media arena are likely to be inherently more flexible and productive than your average employee. These things left the geek world long ago and have integrated themselves into the mainstream.
Consistency counts. Everyone knows of the library or person who started a blog, only to have it fizzle and die within a few months or so. Once you make the decision to dive in start blogging, tweeting, etc., remember that the return on your investment is far off and you have to earn readers and followers. When you take a few weeks off, so do your readers….permanently, usually.
Social media is not for everyone. There is a tendency to evangelize about the wonders of various social media apps. Somehow, all of us got along without them a decade ago, and some folks are still doing just fine. However, if you work in a library, all bets are off. It used to be common practice for librarians to read newspapers, to keep current for their patrons. (Maybe it still is?) This isn’t different. In what other profession is it acceptable not to keep up?*
Not everyone needs every social app. My mother-in-law uses IM and Skype. But she doesn’t use Facebook or Twitter or anything else. She uses what works for her. Same goes for libraries. Invest time and effort into those things that work for your library. Your library doesn’t have videos on YouTube? It’s OK. Really.
Social media is ephemeral. This one in particular can drive all of us nuts. This stuff changes all the time. Today, it’s Twitter. Next month, who knows? (Just don’t forget the Hype Curve. ) This is part of the reason that social media can make for better employees–people who use these things know that they can change/go down/be redesigned from minute to minute and therefore, have to be very adaptable. Who doesn’t want adaptable employees? But it still can make us crazy. We complain, we move on and keep using it.
Sometimes, it’s too much. The amount of user-generated content coming from the various apps and services can be absolutely overwhelming. Learn to weed followers, friends, even services, just like you might weed any other collection.

What other “truths” about social media can you think of? Share in the comments!

*I didn’t make up that last sentence, I read it somewhere recently, but I couldn’t remember where. If YOU know, please let me know so I can attribute it appropriately!

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