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If nothing else, the Iranian election has shown how important social-networking technologies have become in participatory politics. This trend was particularly evident in Iran because nearly half of the country's 46.2 million voters were under the age of 30. These voters have come of age as citizens in an era of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and instant messaging.

The questions here allow you to place yourself in one of the categories in the Pew Internet Project's Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users. To identify the typology group to which you belong, please answer the questions below. When you press the 'Calculate My Results' button, a new page will tell you in which group you fit, along with a description of the general characteristics of that group.

Do you wonder how kids are being affected by growing up in a globally interconnected, multicultural, participatory world? Whether you're a parent or educator, it's important to understand the challenges and opportunities experiences like posting to Facebook, creating a blog, or IM'ing offer to kids, and what you can do to help your kids be successful today.

This is an amazing first-person account of a family photo that had been posted on a personal blog and somehow ended up being used in a storefront ad in Prague! A friend who lived there happened to spot it one day and sent the woman the storefront photos. The primary source of the photo had been this woman's family blog. Copyright violation? The photo had clearly been used for commercial purposes without permission. But what can she do when it involves a country so far away? Check out the blog comments for a lively conversation on the topic, as everyone weighs in.

Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched TOSBAck.org, "the terms-of-service tracker." It tracks TOS agreements for 44 different services, including Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Twitter, and eBay.

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia must decide whether a Pennsylvania middle school can suspend a student who, at home on her own time, created a lewd MySpace page aimed at her principal.

THERE is a gap between what parents think their children are doing online and what their kids are actually doing in real life. For instance, adults think kids are online for 10 hours a week. In reality, children are spending an average of 18 hours online weekly. The results were part of the Norton Online Living Family Survey, commissioned globally by Internet security firm Symantec, as well as in Singapore, between April and May.

The explosion in social networking may be even greater than imagined. The time that people in the U.S. spend on social network sites is up 83 percent from a year ago, according to a report from market researcher Nielsen Online.

Watch this video to learn how to talk to your children about the dangers of posting personal information online and the effect of cyberbullying on others.

Whether we like it or not, Google or Wikipedia are our student's first ports of call when it comes to researching or undertaking independent study, not the school library. Diigo offers a fantastic way to tap into the way our students operate by allowing the annotation of web pages which can then be shared with your students and, by doing so, you facilitate the process of research for your students and you set them on the right track for further independent study.

Five ideas to enable educators to develop and model a purposeful and professional digital footprint.\n\n1-Model responsible footprinting with your own practices in blogging, commenting, social networking, and picture posting.\n2-If you have established a professional blog, share it widely and proudly such as placing it in your email signature (if your employer will let you) and as Jeff Utecht suggests include your blog url when you comment on others blogs and in other forums. This enables others to see best practices and is a great way to get the conversation started.\n3-Google yourself (aka ego surfing). If you have something posted online that you'd be uncomfortable having a current or future student, parent, colleague, or employer find, delete it (if you can) or request that it be deleted. There are ways an aggressive internet detective can still find this information, but most won't go through the trouble and the mere fact that you deleted it shows some level of responsibility.\n4-If you do have online personal information and/or interests you wouldn't want discovered, use an unidentifiable screen name/avatar. This means you may need to update your screen name/avatar in your existing online presence.\n5-Engage in the conversation and professionally comment, reply, and present online, onsite, and at conferences.

When it comes to job hunting, people have no shortage of concerns: preparing a compelling resume, providing polished answers to interview questions, and having excellent references, just to name a few. But since the word "Google" became a verb, job seekers have one more thing to worry about: ensuring their online records won't deter hiring managers from making a job offer. Many employers are incorporating an informal online search of applicants into their review process. Whether or not negative information about you exists on the web, it's a good idea to ensure there are plenty of positive associations. This article from the folks at Adobe makes four recommendations for how to manage your digital footprint.

Doug Foderman and Marje Monroe of ChildrenOnline.org review concerns about Facebook and the risks for kids.\n\nThey have Facebook accounts and actually see it as a wonderful, and valuable, resource. However, just because Facebook says that anyone 14 years or old CAN use Facebook, doesn't mean that they should. It isn't an age-appropriate or developmentally healthy place for our children and younger teens to hang out. Facebook is not working to protect our children and the laws in our country are terribly inadequate to safeguard our children online, in general. Not enough is being done to protect and educate children and teens against the risks that come from using the Internet, and Facebook in particular. We (adults, parents, educators) need to do more.

A former high school cheerleader is suing her former coach and the school district for $100 million after the coach allegedly read personal e-mails, WAPT-TV reported. The student filed the federal lawsuit after she said her coach got into her Facebook account and read the messages. One of the e-mails was between the student and another cheerleader and had profanity.

Designed for non-techies, this excellent presentation by Melanie McBride provides an introductory overview of web2.0 social media tools and trends. It also concerns challenges unique to school boards, their members and the communities they serve.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the social networking Website, Facebook.

To help kids reach their potential, parents today must know about Facebook. That's the purpose of this website and related materials.

Results from this CosmoGirl survey of teens and young adults show that 21% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys have sent/ posted nude or semi-nude images of themselves. What is going on with teens, tech, and sex?