The US’s 6th most high-traffic site introduces classified ads today. Facebook’s new ad section, called “Marketplace,” “will allow users to create classified listings in four categories: housing; jobs; for sale, where users can list things like concert tickets and used bikes; and “other,” a catch-all that could include things like solicitations for rides home for the holidays,” the New York Times … [Read more...] about Facebook’s new classifieds
Literacy & Citizenship
‘Social intelligence’ & youth
People's "social intelligence" is impaired when they socialize online. In "real life," our socializing is equipped with what author Daniel Goleman calls a "face-to-face guidance system" that gives us "a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues" when we interact. It's what helps the interaction go well, so that nobody gets hurt or makes a gaffe. Take the face-to-face part out, he says … [Read more...] about ‘Social intelligence’ & youth
Circumventing teens
Teenagers doing the circumventing, that is - with Web proxies. CNET's "Kids outsmart Web filters" leads with the story of Oregon high school student Ryan bypassing his school's filter by setting up a Web proxy at home so he could access Web sites the school blocks. The school eventually figured out what he was doing and worked out some countermeasures, but there was no disciplinary action - its … [Read more...] about Circumventing teens
Adware, spyware: Huh?
We hear these terms, but what do they really mean to real families with real kids who, we're told, download this stuff all the time? What they mean for most of us is family PCs operating way below normal speed, sometimes crashing a lot or getting so locked up we have to call in the techies (often our kids!) for help. As the New York Times puts it in a thorough look at the phenomenon from both … [Read more...] about Adware, spyware: Huh?
Digital cheating
What's the academic world coming to? "In January 2003, the University of Maryland ... failed a group of accounting students for using cellphones to receive text-message answers during a test. In England last summer, proctors caught 254 secondary-school students illicitly using cellphones during tests," the Wall Street Journal reports. The article also cites Chinese students facing criminal charges … [Read more...] about Digital cheating