First, does the following description of the the Hitchhiker’s Guide remind you of anything?

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

Sounds a lot like Wikipedia to me. In the words of Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” Wikipedia has always struck me as very similar to the Hitchhiker’s Guide–occasionally inaccurate and sometimes irreverent, but always extremely useful. The only difference between Wikipedia and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has been the fact that to use Wikipedia you need a computer, cell phone or pda with Internet access. Not any more.

Amazon’s new electronic reading device, Kindle, is nothing less than a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A lot has been written about Kindle in the past few days, some positive and some negative, but I think people have overlooked how amazing the Wikipedia access is. For less than $400 you can carry around a book-sized device that weighs 10 ounces and that gives you access to every single article in Wikipedia from wherever you are without paying a monthly service charge!

The Kindle requires no computer, no Internet access, no Wi-Fi hotspots, and no monthly subscription. Out of the box, you can access Wikipedia from wherever you get cellular phone service. Amazing. And that’s without even mentioning the main purpose of the device, which is to function as a electronic book reader.

The Kindle is a portable book store and a portable library. You can read books and buy books from anywhere you have cellular reception.

Of course, the Kindle isn’t perfect. As an electronic reading device, it’s still in its infant stages, and I expect it to undergo many refinements and price drops. But the concept is mindblowing.

Imagine students sitting at their desk with a notebook and a Kindle that contains every one of their textbooks. No more lugging heavy backpacks home; no more going to their lockers after every class; the ability to instantly get the definition of any word in their text by selecting it on the Kindle.

Imagine taking students on a field trip to Washington, D.C., New York or places in your own town and having instant access to articles on the Lincoln Memorial, the Empire State Building, or your own local landmarks.

If you can’t tell yet, I love the entire concept. But I do have a few suggestions for Amazon as they go forward with the Kindle:

• Make sure that public domain texts can be converted and used on the Kindle at no charge. Users should be able to take out-of-copyright texts from place like Project Gutenberg and read them on the Kindle without having to pay for them.
• Send ME one, so I can really review it and show it to my students.
• And finally, print the words DON’T PANIC on the cover.

Click on over to Amazon.com to watch several videos about how the Kindle works, and to watch Toni Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Guy Kawasaki and others rave about it.

Called 2 B Saints is an online Catholic organization created by teens, for teens. Our mission is to give everyday information from around the world, but to also focus on Catholic events, information, people and stories. It gives a Catholic outlook on everyday life, fitting our faith into our daily events. Our mission is to show teens around the world how we can live normal, everyday lives, while also focusing on our faith in a unique way. We are here to show that even though Catholics are not perfect, we can still have God play a part in our lives.

The website features weekly audio and video podcasts, news from the world of sports and entertainment, and practical advice for teens–all from the perspective of Catholic teens themselves.

Students have been working in groups to produce content for the site–developing topics for articles, creating storyboards for videos, and writing scripts for podcasts. Together, they and I are learning what it takes to be a part of a multimedia web organization.  We’re all pretty new at this, but we have a lot of enthusiasm and passion.

The model and inspiration for our site is the fantastic work being done by Fr. Roderick Vonhögen and others at SQPN, the Star Quest Production Network.

We encourage you to visit Called2BSaints.com today and subscribe to our blog feed. You can also copy and paste our podcast feed in your iTunes software to listen on your iPod or other mp3 player. And if you like what you hear in our podcast, be sure to vote for Called2BSaints on Podcast Alley.

Please help us spread the word by mentioning us to teens, teachers, and parents; or perhaps you’d like to add Called2BSaints to your blogroll.  If you have a comment, question or suggestion, you can use the Contact Us page to send us your feedback. The more feedback the students get, the more motivated and excited they’ll be to keep improving their content.

Thanks in advance for your help in supporting our new endeavor.

• They’ve already indicated to me their area of interest: blogging, audio production or video production.  Fortunately, there are an equal number of students interested in each area.
• Right now they’re in the process of developing the mission statement of the site in order to have a clear focus when it comes time to create content.  They’ve looked at various mission statements from around the web, including the mission statement from SQPN, the model for our project.
• After they’ve developed the mission statement, the class will brainstorm domain names and we’ll go through the process of seeing what’s available.  We’ve already done some preliminary work on this, so it shouldn’t take too long.
• Once the domain name has been chosen, students will get into their groups to develop an editorial calendar.  The blogging group will decide on recurring content for each day of the week, and the other two groups will develop a production schedule for their weekly podcasts.
• As they begin working on content, they’ll also have input on the appearance of the site and we’ll begin to make some decisions about what it should look like.  We’ll use freely available blog themes to begin with, as we don’t have money to pay a designer, and none of us are experienced enough with template design to make our own.
• Our target goal for publishing our first content is October 12, but our public launch will be November 1, All Saints Day, since our school is All Saints Catholic School.  We hope to have several weeks’ worth of content before that time.
• In the days leading up to November 1, students will learn how to market their site to the Internet community, as well as to their own school community.

This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this, and I’m a bit nervous about how it will go, but I’ve got great faith in the students.  My job will be to function as the editor-in-chief– approving stories, suggesting rewrites and edits, helping them learn the audio and video software, and so on.

You can be sure that the readers of Teen Literacy Tips will be a part of our public launch, so keep checking back for stories of our progress.  Better yet, why not subscribe to Teen Literacy Tips.  You can get every article via email, or you can have the content delivered to your blog reader.

Click here for the RSS feed for Teen Literacy Tips.  See the right-hand column to subscribe via email.

You might show these videos in pairs, one optimistic and one pessimistic, and ask students to state in one sentence how they interpret the artists’ messages.  Or, you could play a couple of songs and ask students if they think the music and the videos express a positive outlook on the future or a negative one.

Once the class has discussed the songs, have them write a paper expressing their own thoughts about the future.  Where are we headed as a nation? A civilization? A species?

You could also ask the question, How optimistic is the music you listen to?  Is the music on the radio optimistic, pessimistic or an equal balance of both?  Then have them find a list of the top 100 singles and sort them into two columns to see if their prediction was correct.

Here are the videos, in no particular order:

Matchbox 20 -  How Far We’ve Come 

Louis Armstrong – What a Wonderful World:

Billy Joel -  We Didn’t Start the Fire:

Goo Goo Dolls – Better Days:

Five for Fighting – 100 Years:

Switchfoot – Stars:

Green Day – Good Riddance (Time of Your Life): This would also make for a good lesson in irony

Connie Talbot – Over the Rainbow:

Barry McGuire – Eve of Destruction:

High School Musical – Breaking Free: