Don’t miss Julia Anguin's Wall Street Journal blog post about how "friending" has gone from knowing what the kid three rows back thinks about the latest celeb news to a popularity contest to, now with Twitter, a "talent show" among "followers" (who are much less complicated than "friends") – or how "to prove your intellectual prowess in 140 characters or less. But where she's going with all this, … [Read more...] about More public Facebook => more careful selves (I hope)
Literacy & Citizenship
‘Claiming’ & social norming in social sites
When she found that about half of teens' social media posts "refer to drinking, sex, or violence," University of Wisconsin pediatrics professor Megan Moreno wondered how much of those posts were just claims, USNews.com reports. She still wonders – hard data is hard to gather – but she "thinks some of it is, some is nonsense, and some is a 'gesture of intention'," where someone might be thinking … [Read more...] about ‘Claiming’ & social norming in social sites
Students on digital activism, citizenship
Parents and educators interested in what 21st-century learning and "Online Safety 3.0" look like should take a look at "Three Years of Digital Activism," a 15-min. video collection of projects by middle and high school students participating in the Camilla, Ga.-based Digiteens project. This is the new, digitally-enabled project-based (and "passion-based," as lead teacher Vicki Davis puts it) … [Read more...] about Students on digital activism, citizenship
Facebook’s privacy changes
Facebook has been known to make a few waves when it announces changes to privacy features, so it's probably hoping that, now with more than 350 million users, the latest changes won't make a tsunami. This week's redesign, which has been in the works since last summer, is meant to both simplify things and give users more control – "more granular control over who can see individual pieces of content … [Read more...] about Facebook’s privacy changes
‘What’s print?’: Navigating the media shift
Tech educator Bud Hunt in northern Colorado looks at what "print" means now in the context of requiring students doing research to look a little deeper than the top five-or-so search results in Google. Is a newspaper article a "print source" now that newspapers are on the Web, along with magazines, encyclopedias, and full-blown research studies? He asks them for primary sources now.BTW, I point … [Read more...] about ‘What’s print?’: Navigating the media shift