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| Ben Franklin as an Edward Gorey Illustration created by blog author using Stable Diffusion 2.1 AI |
Last week I talked about my love of putting my family's faces into vintage album covers, but this week I fell down the rabbit of hole of the ever-growing world of AI. It's a hot topic these days especially in the arts community in regards to copyright and Name Image Likeness (NIL) law. I've never used it and this morning I spent waaaaaay to much time on
www.playgroundai.com finding situations to put Ben Franklin into that might appeal to my tween/teen patrons at the public library.
Common Sense (Media)
Why Ben Franklin though? As you might've noticed, all my blogs are titled off of books that I come across at work in relation to what I'm learning about in school. Today, I'm going to break down the website Common Sense Media (and not Franklin's book) and how I can use it as a public youth services/school librarian. They are a non-profit that specializes in working with partners, families, and educators to educate them on teaching children digital literacy. Here's their mission statement:
Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of all kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century.
They recently released their 2022 report and infograph on their census of media use by tweens and teens in 2021. With most everyone needing to move to a more digital platform in 2020 and 2021, there's a lot of increase in media use by this demographic. When looking at this data, I have to think of how I can use this best in a library situation to remain helpful and relevant to our younger patrons.
For example, the census shows that teens were asked what app they couldn't live without and 32% (the majority) said Youtube. Our marketing department has suggested that we put all our efforts into creating a TikTok for reaching out to teens but this census says that only 13% (the second lowest rated) of them could only live with that. This means that our marketing department, which consists of one woman in her late 40s, thinks that what the youth are watching isn't accurate and we should be looking more at a Youtube channel instead. The data also shows that online videos is where both teens (62%) and tweens (61%) spend the majority of their time compared to gaming and social media.
Common Sense Media for Educators
In digging around further on their website, I looked at their resources for educators
page and was pretty amazed at what free tools their provide. They offer digital literacy programs for different age groups on how to become Digital Citizens. These include segments on issues like cyberbullying to digital footprints and are broken down by grade level.
Based on what I do everyday at work, I opted for the middle school curriculum and selected the 8th grade module called
"Digital Media and Your Brain." It consists of a 60 min lesson that includes a video, slideshow, handout, quiz, and take-home information on the topic of how healthy media usage. This module is also available in Spanish - which isn't just great for equity, but also according to the infograph census we know that Hispanic students spend more time on their screens compared to the others.
As a public librarian I'm not teaching classes directly to kids, but I could create a display and use the handouts provided for families to take home. We could select books, both fiction and non-fiction, that relate to these issues or have characters exploring them. On the educator landing page they do have tabs for the professional development programs they offer and for family handout information.
Equity and Digital Divide
The bottom of the census infograph has a small section on the digital divide and it shows that in lower-income families only 67% of them have a computer or laptop at home. One of the features I found on the Common Sense Media main page was at the very bottom under the "Get Involved" section it helps to meet this equity issue. They have a section called Apply for Free Internet and it offers a way to get a discount on internet access and a laptop. This is done in partnership with the FCC and though it says "free" it really looks more like discounts/coupons for those who apply and qualify.
Bonus Bens!
This means that more patrons have the ability to spend an entire morning combining Ben Franklin into a number of AI-generated images like I did! Some of these images are derived from suggestions taken by our library's teen/tween regulars. All the images below were created by me using the AI program Stable Diffusion 2.1. Their captions are what I typed into the program to generate.
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| Ben Franklin as Mo Willem's Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus |
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| Ben Franklin as crochet |
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Ben Franklin as PS4 NBA 2K19*
*This is the most popular game played by our tweens and teens at the library. |
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| Ben Franklin as a wizard |
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| Ben Franklin as a cactus |
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| Ben Franklin as the Joker |
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Ben Franklin as a goth chick
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Ben Franklin as a cloud
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| Ben Franklin PS4 Madden 2021 |
Ben Franklin with Taylor Swift
Ben Franklin LGBTQ+
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Ben Franklin in Wakanda
Ben Franklin in Animal Crossing
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This was such a fun post - especially the Bonus Bens! I love how you summarize Common Sense Media here, what a great way for an educator to understand the purpose and applicability of the site for their own use. I especially liked how you described ways librarians who aren't in school settings can apply this resource. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Lauren! I love this post! It is funny that you mentioned playing around with AI this past week. I used AI for the first time last week just to check it out, and it was very helpful! I had made a list of about 25 edtech tools for last week's blog post. However, the list was not alphabetized (which really bothers me), so I used the AI tool in Google Docs to alphabetize the list. It was super simple and quick (about 30 seconds)!
ReplyDeleteHiya, Lauren! Couple things here:
ReplyDelete1. PS4 NBA 2K19 looks like real Homer Simpson and I hate them both very much. I've been joking lately that AI has become my 3rd biggest fear, and I'm starting to realize that that's not a joke at all. It makes these glorious grotesqueries, but it also has an unbelievable power over our personal computing. There is nothing I'm more concerned about than the Snapchat AI since such a great number of Snapchat users are kids (see Jason's equally wonderful blog post for more). I'm frightened by its growth, but I'm glad artists have been able to have fun with it. How else would I have gotten to meet Crochet Ben Franklin, who is my new good friend!
2. I love Common Sense Media. When I worked in the children's department of a public library, I was so not well-versed in kid's lit, so I was frequently on there reading their reviews and suggestions. As time wore on, I started to branch out to the other aspects of CSM. Endlessly useful resource. I'm partial to their classes, and I'll have to look into the one you listed.
Overall, this was a great, horrifying post! Thank you for sharing.
I love how you can find a connection to the resources provided by Common Sense Education to inform your parents and patrons! That, and fun with AI makes this a great post!
ReplyDeleteGreat post Lauren! I love the inclusion of AI here! It's definitely a hot button issue at the moment but teens' exposure to it is unavoidable. I've considered making an AI-themed program for teens at my library in the future that combines the fun of AI creation with potential risks and warnings.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting how much your marketing department has pushed for making a TikTok account, but the evidence here shows that might not have much merit, especially with kids. It begs the question: what other media or technology could young patrons successfully engage with?