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"The internet has allowed us to see what would have otherwise remained unseen. Everyone with access to a smartphone, a Twitter or Facebook account now has the ability to report on what is happening anywhere, at any given moment: a comet crashing, bridge cables snapping, a subway bombing. For this fact alone, I love it. But I've had an increasing personal discomfort on one front. Within the bounds of journalism, the fact that someone accused another of having done something wrong has never been enough to warrant an attack. At the very least, you are required to get the other side of the story - but this principle doesn't apply online."

"It was interesting to see that many of my students identified with some of the 'symptoms' of computer dependency presented in the slideshow below. It got me thinking - how many of us are dependent to any extent on the technology we carry around with us?"

ideacity is a three-day gathering of minds held each June in Toronto. It's produced and presented by the Canadian media innovator and pioneer, Moses Znaimer. IDEAS features highlights from the conference. This episode deals with the deluge of digital data in our lives with: Don Tapscott, Canadian cyber guru, on generational change;

"The TV business is having its worst year ever. Audience ratings have collapsed: Aside from a brief respite during the Olympics, there has been only negative ratings growth on broadcast and cable TV since September 2011, according to Citi Research."

A great post about the need to model positive use, not just focus on the negative all of the time.

"The track record of commercial products designed with privacy as a top priority has been abysmal - at least until recently. The ephemeral texting app Snapchat is turning assumptions upside down about young people and their desire for digital privacy."

"Madeline McSherry of Slate says it best:  "Coding is the hottest skill on the job market, the modern-day language of creativity, and a powerful force in the economy." Here are four reason why I believe students should be coding:"

Some ideas on how Flipboard might be used in an educational context

Remember 'Logo?' Now you can write your code and run it in a browser window.

Wouldn't it be great if each line was highlighted as the program ran so you could see visually what each line of code was doing?

"Nearly two in five children have used a tablet or smartphone before they could speak in full sentences, according to a new report. Conducted by family advocacy organization Common Sense Media, the study found that 38% of children under the age of 2 have used a mobile device for playing games, watching videos or other media-related purposes. In 2011, only 10% had."

"Usually conversations with customer service representatives are pretty bland, or even painful if you're trying to resolve a problem. As it turns out, this isn't always true when dealing with Netflix."

Includes excellent walk through activity.  From Lisa Neilson.

"Unfortunately, the code in your browser that powers Facebook still knows what you typed-even if you decide not to publish it.* It turns out that the things you explicitly choose not to share aren't entirely private. Facebook calls these unposted thoughts "self-censorship," and insights into how it collects these nonposts can be found in a recent paper written by two Facebookers. Sauvik Das, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon and summer software engineer intern at Facebook, and Adam Kramer, a Facebook data scientist, have put online an article presenting their study of the self-censorship behavior collected from 5 million English-speaking Facebook users. "

"As you might know, Google currently has a collection of newspaper archives that's worth knowing about.  It turns out that the Newspaper Archive search still works, it just requires a bit of special technique to actually search it out.  You can go to this URL:  https://news.google.com/news/advanced_news_search and it will show you a popup.  Fill in the fields the way you want, THEN do a date-restrict to the dates you want, and THEN in the "Source" field, enter the name of the newspaper you want.  "

Some sage advice from Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator. Useful links to her other posts on digital footprints and digital citizenship are also great advice

interesting research trends infographic about the higher education sector. Basically, online learning gives students control of their own learning.

"Twitter is rolling out an option to ease the use of direct messages. Traditionally, Twitter has allowed users who follow each other to send direct messages back and forth, or for users to send direct messages to accounts that follow them. A new setting, that appears to have been rolling out over the past week, allows Twitter users to receive direct messages from any follower. "If you check this option, any Twitter user that follows you will be able to send you a DM, regardless of whether you decide to follow them back," says a note before the option is turned on."

Another interesting piece about makerspaces. This time how one teacher librarian (librarian and English teacher) in the US used robotics kits in her library to respond to their reading. Her students to created characters from the stories they read and then brought them to life. Innovative and engaging hands-on learning - what's not to like. Other examples are discussed as well.