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MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, LiveJournal…blogs, social networking… "What does this all mean?” parents wonder. “And do I really need to learn about this?”The answer to the second question above is YES! Blogging sites are becoming increasingly popular with teenagers, and there are risks parents need to be aware of.

For a new generation of well-wired activists in the Washington region, it's not enough to speak at Parent-Teacher Association or late-night school board meetings. They are going head-to-head with superintendents through e-mail blitzes, social networking Web sites, online petitions, partnerships with business and student groups, and research that mines a mountain of electronic data on school performance.

School districts in Florida and Alaska have been the latest to initiate Twitter accounts to keep students, parents, and the public updated with news and information about their schools. Broward County Public Schools in Ft. Lauderdale and Anchorage School District have both joined the social networking and messaging site to post updates, called "tweets," on their Twitter home pages. Subscribers can be informed about new tweets through text messages, RSS feeds, and third-party applications.

I've started using Diigo. I haven't quite let go of Delicious but that's one of the good things about Diigo. It allows me to automatically export my bookmarks to Delicious so I don't need to use that service directly anymore. It lets me filter my tags and works directly with Blogger so I don't have to do a tortuous backdoor route to get my bookmarks into my blog. And the toolbar - I have to say that although it takes up more space than the the Delicious buttons... it's fab! You can highlight and make comments on pages and it interacts easily with some of the main social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook. It does the things you didn't realise you wanted Delicious to do, but now you've got a taste for those features, you don't really want to go back...