Week 10 Post

One of the resources discussed this week is the Simple Wikipedia.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
This is as it sounds to be: a simplified form of Wikipedia. Not to get into the issue of whether or not one should rely on an open, mass-edited online encyclopedia (I personally have found it to be very accurate) the fact is that this is the go to source for many when seeking out info. Now, for our students, there is Hebrew Wikipedia. But if we want them to use English, this can go a long way.
For comparisons sake, let us look at the first sections in the entries for Martin Luther King Jr. on both Wikipedias:
     Regular: Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism.^[1]A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, in 1962, and organized nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama, that attracted national attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history. He also established his reputation as a radical, and became an object of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's COINTELPRO for the rest of his life. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and on one occasion, mailed King a threatening anonymous letter that he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide
     Simple: Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)^[1] was a famous American leader of civil rights. He fought for civil rights. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was the son of Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. His father was also a civil rights leader. He was married to Coretta Scott King.He became a Baptist minister. He worked hard to make people understand that black people should always be treated equally to white people. He gave speeches and led rallies to encourage African Americans to protest without the need for violence. One peaceful strategy was for African Americans to have sit-ins. This is where they would sit in a restaurant seat that was supposed to be only for white people. They would politely ask for some food and refuse to leave until someone gave them food. Another strategy that King used was leading boycotts. This is where people would refuse to buy goods or services from people who did not treat white people and black people the same.

As you can see, in the simple version there are fewer abbreviations and long words. The grammar and syntax are much simpler (less passive voice, easier adjectives). However, it also seems to be targeted more towards children, with no mention of extramarital liasons or enemies he made  in the movement. So, the point is, it may be a good way to access info in English, but we have to have a heightened awareness as to the reliability of the information.

It may also be (it seems this way from a little browsing, but no promises) that the simple Wikipedia is more appropriate for children in general and the religious public in particular from a content aspect.

Another thing I tried out is the noodletools search page http://tinyurl.com/1hyc (see, I snuck in another tool)! It is really beyond my ability to describe fully what there is over there, you must check it out yourselves. I will share one thing, though. For anyone who has had to write academic/seminar papers, one of the most frustraing things is searching for scholoarly articles on googe, finding something that seems to be just what you need, and then finding it behind a pay firewall (for "only" $29.999 for one-time access!), requiring you to desparately email everyone you know (Do you have a login for ...?). On this site, you can do a search that is limited to articles in open access journals. I did a search on a topic that I already wrote about (gender-neutral pronouns) and found a very nice article from somebody at Yale, available for saving as a PDF or printing. When I did the same search on Google Scholar, I found some great articles, and could access them for just $39.95 each.

I also tried out Tackk (tackk.com). I am not the most graphics inclined guy, but I was able to make an invitation poster for my daughter's Bat Mitzvah in about 3 minutes (see it here:http://tackk.com/jbstgp). There are other graphic options there that I didn't even check out yet, but it seems to be really user friendly.