Museum of the Moving Image

I had a wonderful time at the Museum of the Moving Image. I loved the stop motion animation exhibit. It reminded me so much of my childhood when I would borrow my neighbor's camcorder, and try to make stop motion animations by pressing record and pause over and over again after moving my collectors dolls little by little.
I loved learning about the history of the beginning of the moving image. I thought that having the interactive stations within the museum was great. This really pulled me in, as I'm sure it would students.
Going by what I know about my own daughter who is 5 years old, I don't think she would have much interest in the museum at her age. So I think a slightly older audience would be good, perhaps 3rd grade and up. (And I believe our guide mentioned that they start giving tours at 4th grade, so that age would make sense.)
I did not like the exhibit with the Exorcist doll and other scary props. While many people would have interest in it, I don't see how those who don't want to see it could avoid it. It seemed that one would have to pass the exhibit to get to the next step in the museum. I think it should have its own room that has a sign warning visitors of its content. This was my only complaint. I think everything else at this museum was phenomenal! I would certainly take a school group here if the school is close enough.

BTW: The remainder of my day was so much fun and I even got to see Jon Stewart in a parking garage!

Should Photographers Interfere?

I come to this question this week after the murder of Ki-Suck Han who was pushed onto the subway tracks in New York. The photographer who shot a picture of the man on the tracks, R. Umar Abbasi, is now under attack for not trying to save the man. He defended himself by saying there was nothing he could have done for the man.

It reminds me of the story of Kevin Carter, whom we learned about in class. He was ostracized for not helping a starving Sudanese child of whom he took a photo in the early '90s. In the photo, the child is shown crawling to a U. N. feeding center; a vulture stands nearby, waiting. Carter ended up taking his own life when he was no longer able to cope with the backlash of this photo, among other things. From what I learned in class, Carter could not help the child because of the risk of disease.

In each instance the photographer did not intervene. Is that okay? I think it depends on the circumstances. The photographer, as with any bystander, shouldn't be expected to put him or herself in danger. The choices must be weighed in each circumstance. I would be the first one to step in if I saw a bunch of 10-year-olds bullying a 7-year-old, but if a grown man was attacking a smaller man, I wouldn't put myself in the middle. But I would call the cops.

So, it all really depends on the choices made in those few critical seconds. Could Abbasi have done anything to help the man. I think trying to grab his hand would have been a nice gesture of humanity, but I don't know how close the train was when this happened. Was there time for that? I just can't judge this man for not putting his own life at risk.

In Carter's case, what more could he have done? He probably had a little more time than Abbasi, but what could he do? The child in the photo was most likely not the only starving child in the area. Could he have walked to the feeding center to get food for her? Would the staff at the feeding center allow that? If he got food for her, would he then have to go back for each other starving child? Where would it end? I don't know... because I don't know the circumstances. So I can't judge his choice either.

I feel for Ki-Suck Han's family. It must have been a horrific few seconds of panic, something that no one should have to experience. But I don't think it was Abbasi's fault, so he shouldn't be blamed for it. I hope society will learn from the past and not judge this man too harshly for what he could not control.

(On a side note, whether or not the photo should have run on the front page of the New York Post, is another question all together...)

Welcome to the Family!

Great news today! My 7th cousin, Prince William, is going to be a father! I'm very happy for my cousin and his wife!

Anyhow, The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting, and the media is already up in her business. I was watching the news this morning and that is what the news was about on every channel. Apparently the royal family was forced to make the announcement since Kate is ill and in the hospital. I feel bad that the whole world is now in her private business by knowing every detail about what's going on with her body. And I still don't understand why her being admitted to the hospital forced the palace to go public, but that was the reason given for such an early announcement. Most women don't tell their closest friends until they're three months along. How strange for the world to know when it's still so new to her!

The commentators made many comparisons to how this new child would live, in contrast to Prince William's upbrining in the spotlight... and also how Kate's experience would differ from Diana's. One reporter mentioned that William would be careful to make sure that history would not repeat itself, (I wonder how much control he has over that). I hope that is truly the case though.

American Music Awards

I'm not a big fan of awards shows, but I thought it would be an interesting thing to write a post on, and since it strategically planned to ruin my night of Revenge, I decided to watch some of it. (I say "some" because I could not possibly stay up late enough to watch the whole thing.)
I liked some things, but I disliked more, and this is just from the first hour or so... imagine if I posted about the whole thing?!

Kate's Top 2 AMA Likes:
1. Real Women
Okay, there were still plenty of toothpicks there on Sunday night. But I was so happy to see that some of the women actually look like they are women! It was so nice to see that Kelly Clarkson and Ke$ha did not look like they starve themselves! I hope this is a continuing trend so that in 10 years when my daughter is into all this music stuff she'll have someone to look up to who at least looks healthy. Too much to ask?

2. Ke$ha (again)
Okay, so I cannot relate to anything in Ke$ha's music, and I'm pretty sure I don't even approve of what she's singing about, but I can tell you that she knows how to perform. I know I sound silly, but I was entralled by the performance, it had so much energy and I really felt like I should get up and dance, but I would have felt like a doofus. Ke$ha on the other hand was dressed up like some kind of jungle woman and had all of these male dancers with skull-like faces performing with her. Amazing!

Kate's Top 3 AMA Gripes:
1. Justin Beiber
Can I just express to you now how much I despise Justin Beiber?
Since this kid's been on the scene I haven't liked him. At first I found it mildly annoying that school girls got all verklempt about this otherwise average-looking boy. Then the whole hair-in-the-face style. Ugh!
Well, this past Sunday he really wanted to make sure he pushed me over the edge. He went up on stage to accept his award, and what are his first words of gratitude that come spewing so eloquently out of his mouth?
"This is for all the haters!"
Really?! All that "hard work"? All those late nights? All those top hits? You did that all for -- whom now? For the haters? You did it for the people who didn't believe in you? sho said you couldn't do it? who didn't think you'd be around in two years? That really sounds like a worthwhile endeavor to me! Keep up the-- er --good work...

 2. Mini Dresses
I don't care how awesome your body is... if the hem of your sleeves come down farther than the hem of your dress you have a problem. I am looking at you, Taylor Swift!
In all seriousness, though, I wonder how much of that was her choice, or if a stylist made that choice for her, because she looked absolutely awkward, self conscious, and uncomfortable in it, constantly trying to pull the hem down. Given her body language I can only guess that she was not happy with the wardrobe choice either. Taylor, either speak up for yourself, or learn how to dress appropriately! The dress was otherwise beautful as far as color, style, and embellishments go, I would have liked to have seen it at least 4 inches longer...and if she was my daughter, 6 inches longer. ;)

3. Live Performances
I was not impressed (save for one, which I mentioned above). Maybe I'm getting too old, but I didn't like Carly Rae Jepsen's song (which I then had to hear repeated during the Macy's Day Parade), Kelly Clarkson's performance had no energy, and No Doubt (whom I used to worship as a teenager and I didn't even know had had a comeback) has not made any big changes or development to their style of music in nearly 20 years.

Class Debate

I found the class debate on children and media violence to be an interesting one. Both sides brought up very valid arguments including the "pro side" who explained that children imitate what they see on television and also have a heightened sense of agression after viewing violent programming, and the "con side" pointed out that there are other factors that contribute to childhood agression.

Now that the debate is over I can talk about my true opinion. I do feel that extreme and excessive amounts of violence are not good for children. Of course, I would never dream of letting my young kids watch a horror flick. But I think, for someone who is very aware of what my kids are watching, I'm pretty liberal. I like to describe myself as a middle-of-the-road parent.

My kids will see an occasional agressive act, but they are not watching those Saturday morning cartoons where they're bombarded with violent images. I don't think completely shielding kids from violence is going to help them in any way. Better to witness it (in small and occasional instances) and talk about it.

And by "talk about it" I don't mean lecture. A quick, "Well, that wasn't very nice." from Mom shows that she disapproves! If the behavior or the words are imitated (which I can't really even remember a time when this has happened), then that particular show will not be viewed again.

Election Night -- Oh What a Night!

Election Day started off pretty quietly. I watched the morning news to see what was being covered.

The interesting dynamic this year was how people in storm-torn areas were dealing with getting out to the polls. In New York voters could go to any voting station, in New Jersey voters could email their votes. I think the highlight for me that morning was when Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey responded to people's complaints about their emails bouncing back. He told them, "get off your butt" and vote. Wow! Strong and eloquent words!

Then the long wait until the evening when we would find out how our next four years would be determined! My sister and brother-in-law joined us and we all enjoyed Election Night pizza as we waited for the votes to be counted. I felt that some of the networks -- especially NBC were making too many projections, they were calling states when only very small percentages of votes had actually been submitted. I also found it interesting that at no time did the networks seem to have similar counts. How does that happen?

I stayed up for it all, well after my sister and brother-in-law went home. I put on my p.j.s and watched as Romney conceded and after a brief snooze (I tried my hardest!) I woke up just as the first family was taking the stage. At this point it was after 1:30 am, almost nothing that President Obama said registered with me at that point, but his energy and the energy of his audience moved me. I'm not one to talk to the television, but I was punching the sky and cheering along with the crowd. I wish I knew what he was saying, but that part of my brain was already in bed. I know west-coasters don't like that their geography means their votes often "don't count" but on the bright side, they could have been it bed by 11!

Hurricane Sandy!

What's that you say? A storm is coming?

The "weather man" always hypes up storms, doesn't he? I have to say, I really thought this one was going to be all hype too. It's a bit like the boy who cried wolf, except in this version the wolf like Big Bad Wolf from the Three Little Pigs, blowing houses (and other objects) away.It turns out that hype can come true, as Sandy has proven.

It's difficult to keep yourself informed of the events as they unfold if you have kids in the house. I wanted to know what was going on, but at the same time, I really didn't need my kindergartener to hear about young kids being killed by falling trees. The radio doesn't give a disclaimer. How about a quick, "Turn down your volume for our next story, if you have children around."?

Another interesting piece to this whole thing is how people survive without their media, now that power has been lost to so many for so long.

P. S. Can I just say, I hate the term "Superstorm?" I'm not sure why, I just think it sounds ridiculously uncreative. The world of meteorology couldn't come up with a more inventive term?

News! News! News!

I really enjoyed our class session on the news. I had a pretty good idea that Americans aren't exposed to a lot of international news because my husband and I used to have satellite television so that we could watch Brazilian programming. We saw a lot of news on the Brazilian channel that we did not catch on U. S. channels.
But I never knew the reason why we don't get a lot of international news. I always just assumed that it was a Big Brother plot to keep us ignorant and unquestioning (I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist -- about everything!). It turns out that the real reason is much less sinister. The real reason is that it's too expensive for networks to have correspondants in foreign countries. Phew!
Anyhow, I'm glad Dr. De Abreu mentioned BBC, because now I'm following that when I can. I learned so many new things about what's going on in the world, and in our own country, the first time I visited.
So now I get my news from BBC!

Won't Back Down

There is so much that I can discuss about the film Won't Back Down. So I feel like I won't be able to give any one point too much justice. So this is just a little list of the feelings I had about this film.

1. Parent Trigger Laws -- While in the context of the film Trigger Laws seem great, I think they are frightning. I have seen otherwise amazing teachers brought down by one or a few parents who didn't like them for one reason or another -- usually not for any legitimate, educational reason. It all has to do with politics. What if I walked into a hospital where I was recently treated and said, "Okay, people, I have this petition, and I'm firing all the doctors and nurses here and replacing them with new ones!" It would never happen in a hospital, so why should it in a school?

2. Heart-Wrenching Mommy Guilt -- Thoughout most of the film we see Nona struggling to help her obviously struggling son with his homework. It is not until later in the film that we learn that Nona drove drunk to bring her colicky infant son to the doctor without properly buckling him in his seat, and most likely caused some kind of brain damage when she subsequently crashes the car. Though I have not and would not put myself or my family in such a situation, as a mother of a once-colicky baby, I can 100% understand the desire to somehow dull one's emotions and senses with something like alcohol. It was difficult not to burst into tears in front of all of my classmates when Nona's son says that despite the accident, his brain is okay.

3. Depictions of the Poor -- If being poor is the way that Maggie Gyllenhaal makes it appear, then I don't think it's half bad! While I, personally, would not be caught dead in a belly-shirt, Maggie's character's wardrobe was far more expansive than my own. She had a new outfit on in every scene, and most looked pretty up to date. The newest item of clothing I own is a pair of materinty jeans that I bought out of necessity in October 2011. Most of my clothes are washed and worn weekly. I think the wardrobe department working on this film failed to make the character look authentic because of this.

4. Is this real life? -- Well, it was inspired by a true story, but I could not find evidence of a parent trigger petition ever being enacted upon. Especially under the circumstances we find in the film. Of course, it's all drama, but we are led to believe that the red tape would be cut and the petition and application would be brought to a vote on the same day it was rejected for having errors in it. And lo and behold the parents are successful!!! And they all lived happily ever after! Hurrah!

Media and the Presidential Debates

The first presidential debate of the current election season has already gone down in history -- from President Obama's apparent "absence," to Governor Romney putting Big Bird on notice, to Jim Leher's inability to keep the candidates in check.

I was struck by the president's lack of focus from the first moment he began speaking. Each candidate was given only two minutes to speak on each issue, yet Mr. Obama ate up 25 seconds -- nearly a quarter of his time! -- to say "Happy anniversary!" to his wife. There's nothing wrong with a little shout out to your leading lady, but keep it short and sweet... the rest of us want to know what you have to say about politics.

I was surprised by how much attention Gov. Romeny's Big Bird comment received. I guess I should have seen it coming, the next day there were a slew of Big Bird memes traveling around the internet, from an illustration of Big Bird forlornly sitting on a wooden box at the city limits of Sesame Street to a video clip from the show that was redubbed with Big Bird obcenely responding to the governor's comment.

One of the most noticable things that happened during the debate was that both candidates continued to talk over Jim Leher's two-minute warnings. Is it Mr. Leher's responsibility to be more forceful, or the candidate's responsibility to respect his authority and stop when they are told time is up? At one point Leher stopped the president at 1:55, to which Mr. Obama said, "I had five more seconds before you interupted me." I thought the statement was particularly harsh, and though I was at home, I still felt uncomfortable! I hope the next moderator is able to keep these men in check!

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

I recently wrote a paper about the few episodes I watched of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. But I can never seem to get all of my thoughts into one paper, so here are some other things that really bothered me about the show.

Stats
I get why they did this, but it's still weird... the writers want viewers to have a little background knowledge about teen pregnancy, teen sex, etc. So, they have one super-smart character rattle off a bunch of stats to her in-the-dark friends in order to educate them and the viewers simultaneously. Yes, it gives us the background, but it still seems forced into the script. Why not have a little blurb, like they do at the start of some movies, that give the viewer the information he or she needs to be able to comprehend the story within context? A little bland, but less corny.


Sex Talk
It's been established in my paper and in class discussion that this show is mostly about sex. But what I find odd is the sex talk that seems to exist between parent and child in this show. Grace is a devoutly Christian teenager who was given a promise ring by her parents. A promise ring means she will remain abstinant until marriage. There is a lot of talk in Grace's house about her waiting. It just seems unrealistic. Most teens would squirm in such a situation. But I would have to guess that a family following such a strict and rigid lifestyle would have a more difficult time talking about these things without blushing!

One Direction: Up...

...onto my soap box!

If you have kids (or ears), you may have heard a little song called "What Makes You Beautiful" by the UK boy band One Direction.
This song has been praised by many as highlighting the beauty within a young woman as opposed to her physcial beauty.
I interpret the lyrics differently. Read or listen to the lyrics for yourself. I don't see any reference to her inner beauty at all. The way I see it is that the boy finds the girl beautiful for the simple reason that she doesn't find herself beautiful (i.e. she has low self esteem).
This isn't the only song I've come across in the last few years with this theme. The lyrics in Bruno Mars' song "Just the Way You Are" also describes a young man's love for a confidence-lacking, self-depreciating young woman.
While some may say these boys are trying help boost a girl's self esteem by professing how beautiful she is despite her own doubt, what these songs are really doing is reinforcing the idea that a woman's own self-worth is based on her physical appearance and that she needs validation from a male to believe this for herself.
I find these two songs (and others like them) harmful to girls' perception of what makes them special human beings.
While targeting an more mature audience, Ne Yo's song Miss Independent is the exact opposite of the songs mentioned above. Ne Yo sings of his attraction to a woman who is able to support herself emotionally and financially. Couldn't this theme be translated into high school terms? Why aren't there any songs out there where the boy is professing how much he likes his girlfriend's good grades, performance in the marching band, or volunteer work?

Body Image in Media

I am one of the least fashionable women you will meet. I wish I could be, and I do try sometimes, but the money and effort needed to keep up is just too much for me to be bothered with. But somehow I gave birth to a very fashion-forward little girl. From the time she was about 18 months she started dressing in princess dresses with tiaras and all that. Now that she's almost 5, she's ditched the princess dresses for the most part, and tries to dress as trendy as possible (within the parameters of the wardrobe her father and I have provided her).

I wonder where this comes from... yes she's seen most of the Disney princess movies, and now will watch movies like Ramona and Beezus, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, where there are tweens and teens dressed in the latest trends. At this point, I haven't seen anything objectionable, but I do worry, is she basing her wardrobe on what she sees on Selena Gomez or other actresses? So, what happens when she's confronted with characters in really trashy clothes, or sees ultra-skinny actresses?

I want my daughter to love herself and be confident. I don't want her to waste her life worring about fitting into the next size down. Or buying into some fad that she doesn't even like, just so she can fit in.

I love that Dove has self-esteem programs for girls. The programs start at age 8, and my daughter is not yet 5. Right now she is very confident in herself and I hope she stays that way. Whenever she gets dressed to go somewhere, she asks us how she looks, we always respond, "You always look beautiful," so she know that it's not the clothing we're basing that compliment on. I want to protect her from bony models and Victoria's Secret ads, but I can't do it forever... So I am so happy that Dove has something out there in the media saying, yes you are beautiful just the way you are.

Perception of Culture in Media

In our first class we discussed our perception of other cultures based on what we've learned through media, and how other cultures view Americans. I couldn't think of an experience I had of this at the time, but eventually one popped into my head.

In 2010, I was in Goias, Brazil visiting my husband's family. His niece (about 20 years old) had a pop magazine and was reading about Amy Winehouse. She mistakenly thought that Winehouse was American. She very seriously asked my husband if all girls in the United States were like Winehouse (i.e. drink heavily, use drugs). He translated for me, and I was very quick to assure her that Winehouse was not American, and (while I've never been to Britain) most likely not representative of most of the young women there.

Reviving My Blog

My poor neglected blog has not been touched for over a year. Hmm...perhaps it has something to do with that new baby...and the accompanying sleep deprivation. Anyhow, I have just started a course at Fairfield University called (MD433) Critical Viewing and Children's Safety on Mass Media and the Internet. One of my assignments is to keep a blog, so instead of starting a whole new one, I'm just going to pick this one up.

I'm looking forward to blogging again. Yay!

Candy Fairy House

Okay, so this isn't quite science, we didn't count, pay attention to measurements or anything like that. This was strictly a mother-daughter bonding experience. I got this idea from No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids by Lisa Turner Anderson.

We started off with a wooden cutting board covered in foil. We made pink icing with white icing and red food dye.

We chose a spot in the "yard" to build the house.

We used chewy chocolate chip cookies. This was a deviation from the recipe, it called for molasses cookies. I'm not sure what those are... but they look thinner and would have been a better bet I think, and you'll see why later... Another deviation... the recipe called for "2 large flat-bottom waffle bowls" which I assumed were those things that are used to hold ice cream. I searched the ice cream cone shelf at the store and found nothing of the sort. I wasn't sure what I was going to do until I came across these tiny graham cracker pie crusts, once out of their aluminum covering, they were very fragile. This one was our second one, the first hardly made it out of the box before it broke.

So far so good... but this mini pie crust will end up breaking too.

Since the mini pie crusts did not work out, we decided to use use a non-food item out of necessity. We whipped up a batch of green icing, which we would be needing anyway. We covered the foil cup that the pie crust had come in with green icing.

Mom cut spearmint leaf candy into thin layers. Not thin enough though... the leaves constantly fell off during the process. The recipe also indicated that these leaves would be sticky enough to not need an additional adhesive. This was also not true, so we used icing which made things slightly better.

On to the second floor of the house...

And the second layer of leaves!

Oops!

A jelly bean walk way...

a chocolate granola bar door (with a jelly bean door knob)...

flower-shaped sprinkers for the garden....

green sugar for the grass...

the pond was Mom's idea, it's made from blue Jell-o...

Finished!

And so much fun!!!

Personal Reflection

I was nervous about going back to school. The last time I was in school I did not have a full-time job, a home of my own, a husband, or a child. Now all of that has changed and I worried that I wouldn't be able to balance my time among my many demands. While it hasn't been easy, I've been able to manage it and I am so happy I've started this program. This course has been exciting from day one and I don't regret my decision to go back to school one bit. In fact, over the past two or so months, I've become even more excited about becoming a media specialist, and I actually regret only taking one course.
I had no idea how much I didn't know! The thought of using podcasts or digital stories (both of which I barely knew anything about before this course) to teach content is so refreshing. (And who knew Kate Paixao would be able to learn how to use Photoshop?) When I return to working in a school, I know it's going to be so different from the pencil, paper, and text book culture that I left only four years ago.
My hopes for the rest of the semester is to learn as much as I possibly can, because I know I can use all of this in my own classroom/library. I am nervous about my Web site. I'm one of the few starting from scratch, and while I have taken courses in XHTML and have experience and knowledge of the technical side of this, I am not very good at the creative end of making a Web page look nice. I have the Robin Williams book which I hope will help, and I'm going to do my absolute best. I worry because I really want this Web site to be amazing, and while I know I can make it work with all of the bells and whistles, I want it to look appealing as well. That will be my challenge. Will we be breaking off with Hugh to work on these again, or are we restricted to lab hours at this point?
I don't want to call this a suggestion, because this is something that's out of your control. I know that as a professor you are very busy, but for the first five weeks of class I was a little nervous about how I was doing because I hadn't had any feedback up until that point. Once I read your comments on my blog at that time, my mind was put at ease. On the other hand, you have made this class so interesting and I can never believe it when 9:15 rolls around because the time just seems to fly. Keep up the good work, and thank you for motivating me!

Response to Digital Goonies

I was pleasantly surprised to see the tree octopus in one of the Digital Goonies' recent postings (I wrote a post about the tree octopus earlier.) I had heard about this Web site more than a year ago, so I thought it was old news, but I guess not. Jim mentioned similar activities to those that I listed when using a Web site like that. He also listed others that are pretty much the same idea... hoaxes. I'd really like to use these one day if I have an opportunity to teach media literacy.

I also found the posting on dialmycalls.com to be useful. It would be great if something happened last minute and I had to contact all of my students' families all at once, I could make a recording and send it to all of them. How easy and practical!

I also found superlame.com to be a fun site for making creative projects. This site helps the user to make speech bubbles and such to add to their own photos.

WebQuest Possibilities

I found two WebQuests that would work great for a school librarian in a high school. The first is called Huck Finn's Eyes, the second, Periods of American Literature.

Response to Inquiry-based Learning

Inquiry-based learning has been a hot topic at my company lately. We are striving to meet teachers' needs in this aspect. I find it challenging to think of things to offer teachers. I write magazines for Pre-K and Kindergarten students. What kind of inquiry-based activities can you offer such young children when your only medium is print? If I was teaching one of these grades, I think I'd find it easier to tackle, because I'd have access to tools, technology, and other materials. We've tried including online lesson plans that we, at least, attempt to be inquiry-based. Some examples include measuring the speed of the wind using a home-made anemometer and the penny experiment mentioned back in my earliest post. It's a work in progress, I suppose.

When I was in 5th grade I was invited to be part of a class called Academically Talented, or AT. Though I didn't know what it was called at the time, we were learning through inquiry. One project that stuck out in my mind above all others was one in which I had to "build a house." Each student had to choose a scenario. Most of the kids chose the scenario that had a family with the doctor-lawyer couple with one kid and loads of money. I chose a family whose father was a mechanic, the mother a home maker, and they had three children. I wanted a challenge(I guess I also may have chosen it because this family was my family exactly minus one sibling.)I had a budget. I knew how much each square foot of the home would cost. I had to design the house on graphing paper with enough room for the whole family. I had a separate budget for furnishings. I had to find furniture that actually existed (I looked through the J.C. Penny catalogue). Again, I stayed within my budget. This was my first experience with money management and having to make smart choices with how I spent the money. It was one of my favorite school projects as a child.

In my school library I see inquiry-based learning playing out in several ways:
1. I'd want to teach students how to think critically about the information they encounter on the Internet. I might send them to Save the Pacific Northwestern Tree Octopus or Squeez Bacon and give the students activities or guiding questions that will help them to come to their own conclusions about what these web sites are actually all about.

2. I love reading Philippa Gregory novels, as may be apparent from my reference to the White Queen twitter page in an earlier post. But after I've read one of her novels I often wonder how much of it was true and how much was made up -- because, let's face it, crazy stuff happens in those stories! I like to look at other works, films, web sites, etc, and see where I can find commonalities and decide for myself what really happened and what was made up. Okay, I know that's not too scientific, but it's only for my own enjoyment.
In a school setting, I can imagine inviting a book club group to do something similar with any historical fiction (with more hard evidence, of course). After reading a work of historical fiction, I'd invite each student to find and show proof of three events that were based on fact and three events that were most likely made up by the author. Depending on their ability level, I may guide them to the right places to do this research, but ultimately it would be up to them to figure it out. This kind of activity could tie in Historical Thinking by encouraging students to look through primary sources, when available.