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University of Minnesota study uncovers the educational benefits of social networking sites. "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," said Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher in the university's College of Education and Human Development and principal investigator of the study.

This article offers new research results regarding the academic benefits of students use of social networking sites.

Non profit organizations like this encourage internet access in underprivaleged areas. This is great.

HotCity Wireless, a non-profit organization, has been established to promote the use of low-cost wireless technology as a media and tool for economic, social and educational advancement to underprivileged citizens in the Philippines. Organizations such as this that work to provide access should be encouraged. Wow!

Illustrating how important this threat has become, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) and Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.) proposed a federal law that would criminalize acts of so-called cyberbullying. In this blog, two national security advisors propose to take it further so that on-line masquerading is also defined and considered. They would also like to see H.R. 2163 increase the penalities when a cyberbully uses a false identity or steals another person's identity when bullying a victim.

Developed by the IT Dept at University of Michigan, this series of five clever posters gets users to remember and adopt a few basic principles of password security. You can order copies off of their web site.

Danah Boyd participated in the Berkman Luncheon Series [Harvard] to discuss her work and research in the area of social networks. She provided a great historical context to the various sites that have come and gone from the center of Internet activity, as well as some insight into what brought about their successes and failures.\n\nPrior to her presentation she explained, "Publics offer youth a space to engage in cultural identity development. By engaging in public life, youth learn to interpret the cultural signals that surround them and incorporate these cultural elements into their life. For a diverse array of reasons, contemporary youth have limited access to the types of publics with which most adults grew up. As a substitute for these inaccessible publics, networked publics like MySpace and Facebook are emerging to provide contemporary American youth with a necessary site for peer engagement."

Sensationlist new article about the fact that everytime you install an app on facebook, you give away your facebook log in details. So who keeps their bank details on facebook? You do...?! Oh, I'm sorry perhaps I shouldn't have said anything -- not.

There is a place for caution -- but not by way of knee-jerk reaction to streams of old new like this.

What do you think about the term "social" networking -- I rather like the term "educational" networking.

This teacher is fighting for "social" networking -- I left a comment that she instead fight for "educational" networking. I think that the demonization of "social networking" by our media makes this term a death sentence for one's efforts.\n\nRead this post and see what you think.

A New Ad Warns About Abusive Texting\nA new public service ad highlights the growing problems of "textual abuse," where harassment of children occurs by way of text messages.

Students need to understand that NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING Is private. Great case study about how 140 characters got someone fired before they were even hired.

How teens manage their online identities and personal information in the age of MySpace

Released in April 2007, this research analyzes results from a survey of 935 teens (age 12-17) and findings from focus groups conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. It explores questions of teen online privacy protection from several perspectives: by looking at the choices that teens make to share or not to share information online, by examining what they share, by probing for the context in which they share it and by asking teens for their own assessment of their vulnerability.

How teens manage their identity online (63% believe that someone could identify them from the info provided even if they don't put personal details like address and phone).

Technology integration matrix from Florida. This amazing resource was picked up from Lucy Gray. Really amazing.

This is a great guide. I would love to use something like this as a model for how we develop our PD.

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students

Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.

This research article has the facts about sexual predatory behavior.

From the Business Software Alliance (BSA.) Computers make it easy to make copies of computer software, pictures, words, movies and songs. But copyright laws make it illegal to copy the creative work without the owner's permission. Making copies of a work protected by copyright is just like stealing. The B4UCopy educational curriculum program, available for free download, has a goal of raising awareness of copyright laws and reinforce responsible behavior online.

Brainpop's new unit on Digital Citizenship covers topics like computer viruses, cyberbullying, blogs, copyright, digital etiquette, privacy, online safety, plagiarism, and social networking in their familiar format with Tim & Moby. And best off, it's all free.

Student-produced video on Cyberbullying from students at TechBoston Academy.

This is really well done. I like the tag line at the end: "Keep It Social". It's not heavy handed, and it's cool. It provokes thought. Thanks.

Two 45-minute lesson plans that address the issue of cyberbullying, teaches safety tips for tackling it, and encourages children to support each other and behave responsibly online.

I really like these lesson plans, and will pass this along to my colleagues in the middle school.

One technique I used to push the learning connections and stretch students to higher levels of thinking is suggesting the use of comment starters to students. I encourage them to use these and encourage them to add to the list. These help students compose responses to posts at higher levels than just "I liked what you said" type of replies. It is a starting point.

Katherine Evans wanted everyone to know: Ms. Phelps was the worst English teacher she'd ever had. So Evans, a Florida high school senior and honors student, posted a Facebook page to publicly criticize the teacher. Two months later, though, Evans was suspended for cyberbullying the teacher with her very precisely named group, "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever had," on the social-networking site.

It's no secret that we live in a world of moral panics -- where new technologies are feared by those who don't understand them, often leading to regulations that block their potential. For years now, a number of politicians have sought laws to ban social networks in schools, assuming that they are either bad or simply inappropriate for schools.