Thanks to Kathy Kraemer at TIES for sending me this fun news on a new Internet2 tool — Muse. If you are an eductor, it’s worth checking out. If you know an educator, it’s worth passing on. Actually even if you are just kind of curious about Internet2, this is worth checking out.

Muse is a new social networking tool (similar to Facebook or mySpace) that makes it much easier for the variety of K20 community groups both in the United States and internationally to discover and connect with each other around the use of advanced network-enabled teaching and learning resources and applications.

One of the things that I think we saw at the Broadband conference last week was the power of the Internet not just to bring communities from around the globe together – but also to bring local communities together. In some ways on a cold, snowy winter day that can be just as valuable in Minnesota.

Once you have signed up for a Muse account, you can search for people, projects and organizations in Muse as well as post new projects, opportunities, news and resources. You can also add people to your friends list, message them, and track their interests, projects, and resources. That being said, even as a guest you can learn a lot about Intenet2 and innovative uses of Internet2.

As a librarian (OK at this point I may be more like a recovering librarian than a practicing librarian) I was very impressed with their search tool. The tool is new so there isn’t a ton of examples or info on the site yet – but the framework is great.