Group items tagged

"Social network sites must ensure that children's profiles are visible only to the child's friends and cannot be found on a search engine, the European Commission has said. The Commission adopted its stance after a survey (13-page / 198KB PDF) found that an increasing number of children were flouting social network age limits to set up their accounts. The survey was funded by the Commission and published by the EUKidsOnline network. EUKidsOnline quizzed 25,000 young people across Europe and found that 38% of children aged between 9 and 12 have a social network profile. The figure was 77% for children aged between 13 and 16. Most social networks ban children under the age of 13 from having profiles. "Growing numbers of children are on social networking sites but many are not taking all necessary steps to protect themselves online. These children are placing themselves in harm's way, vulnerable to stalkers and groomers," Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda said."

"Children are inherently social creatures. Take one look at a playground and you'll see young kids interacting with one another, practicing their social skills, and learning the lay of the land. So, it's only natural that children would want to follow the popular trend of joining an online social network…right? After all, their friends are doing it. In this article, we will explore social networking websites and how children below the required age to join are able to open accounts. We will also discuss the social networking dangers and positive effects of social networks on young children and offer helpful tips for parents who wish to guide their kids towards a safe direction."

In today's digital world teens are increasingly incorporating social networking into all aspects of their lives. This paper explores the topic of teen social networking and how the incorporation of social networking within the classroom can provide a valuable education on safe and constructive social networking, enabling teens to become responsible digital citizens.

This paper will present the findings of the pilot studies on the use of online social network in Malaysia. A total of 40 questionnaires were distributed to active users of this social media to get an early indication on this activity. In addition, discussion about the global activities of online social networking is also undertaken as a comparison. The analysis shows that online social networking has been used as a new mode of communication especially for Internet active users to meet and interact with their friends. Early findings indicate that they spent quite many hours in this environment and log in into their accounts a few times a day. This shows that social interaction in cyberspace by using new media applications such as social networking has been adapted by more and more people and has changed human communication.

"This is a study well worth reading and thinking about because it focusses on teaching and learning. It demonstrates clearly that the use of social networking can be used successfully in the processes of learning. Designing for Learning: Online Social Networks as a Classroom Environment provides a model for schools to consider as a starting point for using social networking in pedagogy. "

"In a recent post I described how Social Media is About Nodes and Connections and explained "the importance [of] the network effect, with a growth in the number of nodes (the bloggers, the contributors, the Twitter users) leading to a growth in the number of connections (the posts, the comments, the tweets, the retweets) which help in the development of new insights and new ideas". But whilst many users of social media, including those working in higher education, are making use of such network effects to support their professional activities in legitimate and ethical ways others are seeking to exploit network effects in ways which may be considered unethical."

"In this digital world, opportunities for education are available like never before. Though teachers using online tools are empowering students take part in their education, they may also expose them to inappropriate material, sexual predators, and bullying and harassment by peers. Teachers who are not careful with their use of the sites can fall into inappropriate relationships with students or publicize photos and information they believed were kept private. For these reasons, critics are calling for regulation and for removing social networking from classrooms -- despite the positive affects they have on students and the essential tools they provide for education in today's digital climate. "

Hence more reasons why teachers must be well read and prepared and willing to work with a team/committee to help solve the issues of safety, legality and ethical behaviours before working on their school DLE.

"More and more, social media is becoming a part of our daily lives. Just today, Mashable is out with a report that says Pintrest (which is less than a year old) is the #3 social network in the U.S. This report mentions that the amount of monthly traffic Facebook receives is seven billion page views, and Twitter receives 182. Again, these are just U.S. statistics. If we were to look at the numbers worldwide, I would guess they would be much, much higher. But it isn't just adults who are moving more of their lives to online spaces. In a recent Pew Internet survey, 73 percent of all teens used social networks daily. The most popular of these is Facebook; however, Twitter, Myspace and even LinkedIn are not far behind. And it isn't just teens. The #1 social network for kids under the age of 13 is Club Penguin. It is visited more times each day than the New York Times. "

Some interesting research going on in the EU on how social media can be used to inform policy: Social networking technology provides major new opportunities for policy makers (eGovernment) to engage with the community (eSociety). We will develop a toolset that allows full advantage to be taken of a wide range of existing and well established social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, WordPress etc.) to engage citizens in two-way dialogs as part of governance and policymaking processes. The tools will make it possible to detect, track and mine opinions and discussions on policy oriented topics. The tools will allow discussions to be seeded and stimulated through injection of policy discussion points into relevant communities in a secure and managed way. The tools will allow the origins, bias and evolution of opinions to be tracked to provide auditable records of provenance, guard against misuse, and ensure trust and privacy for all involved. A key feature of our approach is to allow policy makers to move away from the limitations inherent in the current practice of using bespoke and dedicated platforms (e.g. specific opinion soliciting websites hosted by government) and instead make full use of the high levels of participation and rich discussions that already take place in existing social networking communities. In this way, WeGov will develop the tools and techniques for closing the loop between policy makers and the citizens.

"Despite the fact that I know many teachers who would rank Twitter as the most valuable and powerful networking tool they have access to, there are still many more who simply don't "get" the value of Twitter. I've been to lots of conferences over the last few years where the enormous value of belonging to a Personal Learning Network was being touted, and Twitter is nearly always being suggested as the ideal tool for building that network. At one recent conference I asked for a show of hands for who was not yet on Twitter, and many hands went up... my response was "Why not? What are you waiting for? How many times do you need to hear people say that Twitter is the most valuable tool they have, before you actually try it for yourself?""

'Teenagers, legal risks and social networking sites' [PDF], a 109 page report by Melissa de Zwart, David Lindsay, Michael Henderson & Michael Phillips, investigates the legal risks of social networking as experienced by Victorian secondary school students, teachers and parents.

"This paper deploys notions of emergence, connections, and designs for learning to conceptualize high school students' interactions when using online social media as a learning environment. It makes links to chaos and complexity theories and to fractal patterns as it reports on a part of the first author's action research study, conducted while she was a teacher working in an Australian public high school and completing her PhD. The study investigates the use of a Ning online social network as a learning environment shared by seven classes, and it examines students' reactions and online activity while using a range of social media and Web 2.0 tools. The authors use Graham Nuthall's (2007) "lens on learning" to explore the social processes and culture of this shared online classroom. The paper uses his extensive body of research and analyses of classroom learning processes to conceptualize and analyze data throughout the action research cycle. It discusses the pedagogical implications that arise from the use of social media and, in so doing, challenges traditional models of teaching and learning."

This post describes how educators can develop a personal learning network that supports meaningful and relevant learning. The MOOC, Education Technology & Media, etmooc, is used here as a working example of how to develop a PLN.

Over the past couple of years, I've been trying to collect every good piece of writing and advice about verifying social media content and other types of information that flow across networks. This form of verification involves some new tools and techniques, and requires a basic understanding of the way networks operate and how people use them. It also requires many of the so-called old school values and techniques that have been around for a while: being skeptical, asking questions, tracking down high quality sources, exercising restraint, collaborating and communicating with team members. Post also contains a great Slideshare.

"I set out to answer these questions through a study of attitudes, which compared digitally literate students' to digitally-challenged teachers and visa versa. In this study being undertaken at Swinburne University and sponsored by the Wesley College Institute for Innovation in Education, 321 students in years 9 and 10 and 100 educators were surveyed about their attitudes to digital literacy and the use of digital technologies. The schools were co-educational independent schools with laptop programs and significant differences were observed in student and educator attitudes towards each other's digital literacy. The hypothesis, "that there is a disconnect between the digitally capable students and digitally challenged educators in schools with laptop programs, limiting effective use of digital technology in the classroom" was supported in the findings. This has repercussions for educating "net generation" students and implications for the implementation of the National Secondary Computer Fund and National Broadband Network. The disconnect was revealed in terms of attitudes towards technology in the classroom, teaching pedagogy, internet use, adoption of cutting-edge technologies and limitations placed on school laptops and networks. In this study 57 statements were provided to research participants, who were then grouped into four groups: digitally capable students, digitally challenged students, digitally capable educators and digitally challenged educators."

"Do you act correctly when using social networks? Check out the video and get valuable safety tips . Get full list of do's and don'ts at http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/generic/toshiba-mcafee-news..."

A read through most online privacy policies is enough to make your stomach acid curdle. And social media companies have more access to personal data than most. Some collect information you expressly give them, like your credit card and telephone numbers. Others gather data based on how and where you use their services. This might include anything from device and browser information to location intel. And some of it gets really specific - think about your last search query or ad click. It's probably all "fair" game. Depending on the type gathered, social networks use data to enhance location services and target advertising (now you know why that sunglasses website you visited three months ago follows you all over the web). A few social sites even share certain information with marketers and/or third-party partners - in that case, you are responsible for familiarizing yourself with those other companies' policies as they apply to you and your information.

"LinkedIn is the world's most popular professional networking site, with 238 million users. It rakes in a truckload of money from not very subtle advertising, subscriptions and recruitment agencies and its shares are currently valued at $US231 each. But unlike its social networking friends, Twitter and Facebook, something seems slightly askew with LinkedIn's integrity model."

"We recently helped a 17-year-old get a topless photo and fake profile removed from a social networking site. But even though content was deleted, the picture and fake profile lived on as "cached" or archived content in the Google Search index. So the content removal process didn't end with the social networking site. The next step was to submit a request to remove the cached content from Google, called a "content removal request." It's important to note that the picture and fake profile would have naturally dropped out of Google the next time its Web crawler indexed the updated page. But if you want to expedite the removal process, the way the user above did, here's how:"

"Disney has just acquired Togetherville, a social network for kids 10 years of age or younger, we've confirmed with the company. Terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed at the moment."