School filtering works better when less restrictive and blended with teaching students how to "take responsibility themselves for using new technologies safely," said a study by British education watchdog Ofsted I blogged about in February). Educator Tom Whitby and the amazing comments to his blog post, "Deal or No Deal" got me thinking about this all over again this weekend. User-produced … [Read more...] about Reflection on filters, social media & school
Social Media
Social Web privacy: A new kind of social contract we’re all signed onto
1993: In a famous New Yorker cartoon, a dog at a computer says to his canine buddy looking up from the floor, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Fast-forward 13 years.... 2006: "On the Internet, EVERYBODY knows you're a dog," declares the subhead to a Michael Kinsley essay in which he wondered at how narcissistic the social Web was (before that became a cliché). Fast-forward only … [Read more...] about Social Web privacy: A new kind of social contract we’re all signed onto
Anyone can have a social site now
This has actually been true for a while. A year ago I wrote "Mini-MySpaces: Social Web's new phase" about how anyone could create his own social-networking site on Ning.com. Last month I blogged about competitors to Ning offering would-be social site owners more options. This week Google further upped the ante in announcing Friend Connect, allowing people to add social-networking features to any … [Read more...] about Anyone can have a social site now
Drug dealing on the social Web
For some time I’ve been writing and speaking about the other kind of support teens are finding on the Web, support for risky or self-destructive behavior – which long predates this latest, very social phase of online life. Now there’s some valuable research on this – a study of “more than 10 million online messages written by teens in the past year,” USATODAY reports. Conducted by Nielsen … [Read more...] about Drug dealing on the social Web