A Google search on almost any topic leads to links with visual materials — photos, video, graphics. Can I download and use those materials? That’s a good discussion to have with your students. Because a photo or video can be downloaded doesn’t mean that it is legal to do so. But many students think that […]

How public do you want your life to be? A Google search can be a reminder of how key words and tags for a site drives traffic to a site. If one is trying to create that traffic, the term is “search engine optimization.” If you are birthdayinabox.com, you want to generate that kind of […]

Finding a niche angle on a national (or in this case, international) story — That’s what MTV did. The story started wth Rowling’s birthday but then focused on Jarvis Cocker, a musician who is an actor in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” The lesson is that media students can use dates and events […]

A Google search for “Harry Potter, JK Rowling birthday” resulted in thousands of possible links — from the MTV story to an 8-year-old’s birthday photos to a video of Daniel Radciffe (Harry Potter) singing happy birthday to Rowling from two years ago. So the teaching lesson is to do a similar activity with your students […]

Chocolate frogs, magic wands and broom flying were part of Nadia Johnson’s 8th birthday party. This set of photos on Flickr was one of the top links in my search, right along with a commercial party site, Harry Potter Web sites and MTV.

Create your own Harry Potter birthday My Google search reminded me that we all can have a birthday celebration with Harry Potter. One of the first links in the search took me to amazingmoms.com and then to birthdayinabox.com where I could order Harry Potter birthday items, including little Hedwig owls as party favors. The Harry […]

One of the few news stories about JK Rowling’s birthday that appeared in the top of the Google search was this story from MTV.

The Google search… One of the first strategies for finding any information is a Google search. That’s part of why Yahoo! and Microsoft have teamed up — because Google has such control of our approach to Internet searching. So I did a Google search for “Harry Potter, JK Rowling birthday,” which resulted (of course) in […]

I wouldn’t have known that July 31 is the birthday for Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling if I hadn’t watched the ABC special “J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life” that aired on July 16, just days after the movie opening of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” That Rowling chose her birthday as Harry’s […]

Requirement for college students to have iPhone or iPod touch? My own experience with having to buy a new iPhone made me think about the college programs that have required students to have an iPhone or iPod touch. My first generation iPhone was only 19 months old when it lost its wireless ability. It didn’t […]