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Educational Benefits of Social Networking Sites Uncovered

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:02:33 GMT

esearchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered the educational benefits of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. The same study found that low-income students are in many ways just as technologically proficient as their counterparts, going against what results from previous studies have suggested.

What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today,"

educators can help students realize even more benefits from their social network site use by working to deepen students' still emerging ideas about what it means to be a good digital citizen and leader online.

"Students are developing a positive attitude towards using technology systems, editing and customizing content and thinking about online design and layout. They're also sharing creative original work like poetry and film and practicing safe and responsible use of information and technology.

Old Friends on Facebook

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 18:09:28 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers
clipper's remarks: Grownups, a quickly growing membership on Facebook.

Clip Source: www.time.com

A lot of the things that grownups already do on the Internet, from blogging to participating in PTA newsgroups to mass e-mailing bad jokes to friends and family, could be described as social networking. The term is applied mainly, though, to the services that enable users to collect and communicate with a network of "friends."

Facebook claims to be signing up 150,000 new members a day.

Over the next three or four or five years, this stuff is going to reach a much larger number of people,"

"It's just getting started."

Facebook as akin to AOL in the 1990s--introducing tens of millions of beginners to a new form of communication.

you can see the potential of an online world arranged to emphasize the doings and opinions of those who matter to you most. You can see the pitfalls too, mainly in defining who matters. In the world of Facebook, friends don't drift apart. Either someone makes an active break, or the connection and the News Feeds go on forever. Get used to it.

Tags: web2.0, technology, parenting, internetsafety

What Would Obama Say?

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:46:24 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: Obama's head speech writer is 26 years old!

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

He does have other things to worry about. “Can you get through this process and keep the core of yourself?” Mr. Favreau asked. “You know, we’re finding out. I’m confident he can. And I think I can, too.”

Mr. Favreau, the campaign’s 26-year-old head speechwriter, found himself in the hotel lounge with less than three hours to revise what was to have been a victory speech. What made it particularly strange was that his words were being challenged. Mrs. Clinton had helped turn her campaign around by discounting Mr. Obama’s elegant oratory, saying, “You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.”

Favs, as everyone calls him, looks every bit his age, with a baby face and closely shorn stubble. And he leads a team of two other young speechwriters: 26-year-old Adam Frankel, who worked with John F. Kennedy’s adviser and speechwriter Theodore C. Sorensen on his memoirs, and Ben Rhodes, who, at 30,

helped write the Iraq Study Group report as an assistant to Lee H. Hamilton.

Tags: interesting

Science 2.0 - Is Open Access Science The Future?

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:05:01 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: The impact of social networking on the scientific community.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

The first generation of World Wide Web capabilities rapidly transformed retailing and information search. More recent attributes such as blogging, tagging and social networking, dubbed Web 2.0, have just as quickly expanded people’s ability not just to consume online information but to publish it, edit it and collaborate about it—forcing such old-line institutions as journalism, marketing and even politicking to adopt whole new ways of thinking and operating.

Science could be next. A small but growing number of researchers (and not just the younger ones) have begun to carry out their work via the wide-open tools of Web 2.0. And although their efforts are still too scattered to be called a movement—yet—their experiences to date suggest that this kind of Web-based “Science 2.0” is not only more collegial than traditional science but considerably more productive.

Acceptance of such measures would require a big change in academic culture.

Trading Nude Photos Via Mobile Phone Now Part of Teen Dating

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:38:18 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: Ick.

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Forget about passing notes in study hall; some teens are now using their cell phones to flirt and send nude pictures of themselves.

"I've seen everything from your basic striptease to sexual acts being performed," said Reynoldsburg police Detective Brian Marvin, a member of the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force of Central Ohio. "You name it, they will do it at their home under this perceived anonymity."

"A lot more girls are aggressive," said Ray, 18. "Some girls are crazy and they are putting themselves out there."

Candice Kelsey, a teacher from California, said some teenage girls think they have to be provocative to get boys' attention. As a result, they will send photos they hope their parents never see.

A study last year found teens are placing more of an emphasis on image and fame than in the past. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University who studies young people's trends, found that teens are more confident and assertive than ever before.

The Perils and Promises of Praise

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:14:16 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers

Clip Source: www.ascd.org

We often hear these days that we've produced a generation of young people who can't get through the day without an award. They expect success because they're special, not because they've worked hard.

educators commonly hold two beliefs that do just that. Many believe that (1) praising students' intelligence builds their confidence and motivation to learn, and (2) students' inherent intelligence is the major cause of their achievement in school. Our research has shown that the first belief is false and that the second can be harmful—even for the most competent students.

Praising students for their intelligence, then, hands them not motivation and resilience but a fixed mind-set with all its vulnerability. In contrast, effort or “process” praise (praise for engagement, perseverance, strategies, improvement, and the like) fosters hardy motivation. It tells students what they've done to be successful and what they need to do to be successful again in the future.

My Virtual Summer Job

Mon, 19 May 2008 21:11:52 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: Kids working in Second Life making a boatload of money!

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Mr. Everest, of Durango, Colo., is among a new breed of young entrepreneurs seeking their fortune online in imaginary worlds. As the pool of traditional summer jobs shrinks, tech-savvy young gamers are honing their computer skills to capitalize on growing demand for virtual goods and services. Some work as fashion designers, architects and real-estate developers in Second Life, a fantasy world populated by digital representations of real people. These so-called avatars shop in malls, buy property, hang out with friends or sit "home" watching TV, all manipulated by their real-life counterparts with computer key strokes and a mouse.

A Q&A With the Author of the Future of Reputation

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:49:24 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: All kinds of reasons to teach children to be responsible and ethical users of the internet. Even those who have no digital footprint can be impacted. A societal shift is necessary.

Clip Source: freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

Section 230 does not establish a good balance between protecting reputation and preserving free speech.

It’s allowed websites like JuicyCampus.com, which facilitate the spread of gossip and rumor on college campuses, to flourish without consequences.

Many social network websites are set up with a default setting that makes information fully available to the public. This is the easiest setting, and many people just go with the default.

If you find information about yourself online that is libelous or invasive of privacy, you should contact the person who put it up and request it be taken down. In many cases … this will solve the problem.

On the Internet, however, shaming can become a digital scarlet letter that can be affixed to a person’s identity for life. Wherever that person might go, their shameful acts will readily pull up in a Google search.

Daniel Solove

The Future of Reputation,

The goal is for a set of norms to develop about responsible blogging — for a kind of ethical code

Britannica Goes Wiki

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:07:01 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris

Clip Source: chronicle.com

But it’s not a complete free-for-all. The voice of Britannica adds that the core encyclopedia itself “will continue to be edited according to the most rigorous standards and will bear the imprimatur ‘Britannica Checked’ to distinguish it from material on the site for which Britannica editors are not responsible.”

Long a standard reference source for scholarship, largely because of its tightly controlled editing, the Encyclopaedia Britannica announced this week it was throwing open its elegantly-bound covers to the masses. It will allow the “user community” (in the words of the encyclopedia’s blog) to contribute their own articles, which will be clearly marked and run alongside the edited reference pieces.

The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:58:14 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: More corporate America turning to Macs

Clip Source: www.businessweek.com

While thousands of other companies scratch and claw for the tiniest sliver of the corporate computing market, Apple treats this vast market with utter indifference. After a series of failed offensives by the company in the 1980s and 1990s, Chief Executive Steve Jobs decided to focus squarely on consumers and education customers when he returned to Apple in 1997. As a result, the company doesn't have ranks of corporate salespeople or armies of repairmen waiting to respond every time a hard drive fails. Nothing that could divert his minions from staying focused on Apple's core calling: creating the next cool thing for the world's consumers.

Millions of consumers are seeing the Mac in a new light. Once an object of devotion for students and artists, the Mac is becoming the first choice of many. Surging demand for the machines led Apple to predict revenues will rise 33% in the second quarter, to $7.2 billion, even in the face of an economic slowdown.

Clueless in America

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:42:02 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: drop out rates and sub standard education a real issue in this country

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.

An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.

Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread.

We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,

When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.

Tech encourages students' social skills

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:40:53 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris

Clip Source: www.eschoolnews.com

Well-integrated technology opens social networks for students and allows children to develop key social skills, according to two recent studies conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Researchers X. Christine Wang and Cynthia Carter Ching have based both of their reports, titled "Social Construction of Computer Experience in a First Grade Classroom: Social Processes and Mediating Artifacts," and "Digital Photography and Journals in a Kindergarten-First-Grade Classroom: Toward Meaningful Technology Integration in Early Childhood Education," on the theoretical framework introduced by Lev Vygotsky.

A Facebook Education

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:44:14 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers
clipper's remarks: Teacher's story about her facebook page and how it brought her closer to her students.

Clip Source: www.teachermagazine.org

All year I had resisted my students’ cheerful pleas for me to get onto Facebook, the increasingly popular social networking Web site that was originally intended for kids in school. I wasn't in school. I was only at school, teaching, sharing a little of what I knew about literature and a lot of what I knew about life. I was perfectly content to be among the millions of Americans who didn't have an online presence.

I caved in this summer. Every few years a teacher gets a class that grows especially close during the school year.

the first message I got on my "wall" was from her. It read, "mrs giese!!! its about time you got facebook! how long ago did i send you this invitation? lol."

Once I got comfortable with the medium, I posted a message on my wall saying, "Coffee on Tuesday. 3pm at Starbucks" and eleven kids showed up.

If I thought Phillip didn't like my class, I was wrong. He was listening to every word I said.

I only wish I had known it sooner.

Tags: teaching, interesting, teens, web2.0

Colleges Use Social Networking Sites

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:58:32 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers

Clip Source: wlsam.com

Colleges and university admissions officials are finding social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and even blogs increasingly useful as some have begun perusing the sites to evaluate applicants' character, according to research recently released by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Colleges and universities are reluctant to publicize that they seek out information about prospective students online, particularly because it's not done consistently, Barnes said.

Items such as suggestive images, threats, violence, hazing, vulgar language and party scenes - particularly if alcohol is involved - should never be posted on a teen's Web page. If a teen thinks such items are protected by privacy guards, they're wrong, considering portals to their pages can be found through any of their friends pages.

University of Massachusetts study concluded that "the use of social media in the 'ivory tower' is outpacing even the business world."

Tags: parenting, teens, internetsafety, web2.0

Web Warnings May Not Make Kids Safe

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:46:31 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers
clipper's remarks: Another article about recent studies about online safety.

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

Almost every lesson on Internet safety warns against posting personal information such as phone numbers and school names. Researchers are now suggesting, though, that such advice, however well-intentioned, doesn't necessarily make children safer from predators and related threats.

In a recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, researchers found no evidence that sharing personal information increases the chances of online victimization, such as unwanted sexual solicitation and harassment.

Rather, victimization is more likely to result from other online behavior, such as talking about sex with people met online and intentionally embarrassing someone else on the Internet.

"There is something to be said for preserving your privacy for other reasons," Lenhart said, noting that too much information could come to haunt teens when they apply for college or jobs. "Safety is not necessarily the No. 1 reason."

Tags: internetsafety, middleschool, technology, teens, parenting