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Emily Post would be proud. Read this to learn about etiquette for e-communication.

Summary: In a shift, professors from prominent colleges (including Harvard) are actually *encouraging* students to use Wikipedia.

Yes! This is a great way to harness a digital resource rather than dismissing it. More or less, everyone uses Wikipedia because if for nothing else, it's usually the first hit in a Google search. I agree with the article in that most students aren't allowed to cite Wikipedia but they do use it as a jumping-off point for their research. So in this sense, it IS valuable. One of the reasons I like it in a pinch is the colloquial tone in the delivery of the information. I usually feel like a buddy is explaining it to me rather than a Phd. If students could capture that tone but provide quality assurance on the facts, there's a real research gem to be had here.

My first thought is "why would you want to be friends with your students on facebook?" It depends on the reasons people have a facebook page. If it is, indeed, going to be used as a tool to extend "learning" outside of the classroom, then I believe there are other platforms outside of Facebook. If teachers still want to use this for class, perhaps a better option is having a twitter account for school only where they can update students. I worked for two districts-one told us we were not allowed to be friends with our students and the other just warned against it. Most teachers I know do not add their students because it is a place for their friends where they do not see themselves as some child's teacher, but someone's friend. I know a high school chorus teacher who friends her students, and I think its inappropriate. She posts things about her personal life and they frequently chime in. However, discusses her personal life in class so it may not be that much of a difference than posting it online. I would take action as a teacher if I were disciplined for a facebook post. Ultimately people need to check their privacy settings if they can. There are even issues with friending other teachers. I refused to do this with other teachers, unless we were friends outside of school. I knew of teachers who would tell our principal what was posted on other teachers' pages.

My toddler plays with the First Words game, but the iAmino and myHomework was interesting too.

Interactive tv Perhaps educators could have an impact if they coordinated?

This is a really interesting and cool idea. I know that Disney's intense storyboarding model in its 'golden age' relied on months and sometimes years of collaborative, co-creation of a story between 10s-100s of people. And their decline in quality is often attributed to adopting a one-author/screenwriter process (The book: The Illusion of Life, Disney Animation; by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston talks about the company's process with lots of beautiful illustrations, how-to advice, and historical narratives..). What will happen when the general public, with potentially 1000s to millions of viewers put their minds together to evolve the best story?

ROI on social media. I find it interesting that when measuring a social market there are no social indicators that are valued. Does it make sense to slice social media into dollars and sense? I understand why you would need to justify it, but I am not sure that the greatest value of social media is driving traffic.

This relates to today's class discussion about search: a model based not on popularity or paid placement, but on Wikipedia-style editing by users.

This could be used as an alternate means of interacting with computers. From an educational standpoint this does not appear to be dated, but rather creating opportunities for people with limited means of motion.

Check out the video at http://vimeo.com/11731351 (It's the same info Cameron posted a while ago but this time it's made the widely read Huffington Post ... and I think it's a good repeat post since I, for one, didn't pay enough attention to this the first time I heard about it.)

online school for grades K-8

The first line of this sums up an opinion about technology that I think many of us share, but is society changing its view?

The first week in December was deemed Computer Science Education Week by the U.S. House of Representatives to promote awareness and education of computer science.

Virginia Tech's L2Ork, the world's first Linux-based laptop orchestra. With its affordable design and support from the Linux community, L2Ork hopes to bring laptop orchestras to K-12 education and beyond.

on "electronic bathroom wall": elite universities are struggling with the problem of anonymous gossip sites

Good share, Diana. This article is particularly interesting for the issues it chooses to raise and the way in which various arguments are presented. One quote struck me, "We have Smart Boards in every classroom but not enough money to buy copy paper, pencils and hand sanitizer," said Nicole Cates, a co-president of the Parent Teacher Organization at Kyrene de la Colina, an elementary school. "You don't go buy a new outfit when you don't have enough dinner to eat." But she loves the fact that her two children, a fourth-grader and first-grader, are learning technology, including PowerPoint and educational games (Page 5)". How can we work to harmonize these two? This reminds me an article I read in the Boston Globe this morning regarding teachers going out-of-pocket to equip their classrooms with enough supplies for an increasing number of students. The article suggests that budget cuts that make this necessary save teacher positions. There has to be a better way. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/09/05/budgets_cut_teachers_dig_deeper_for_supplies/

From the point of view of a policy maker (particularly in developing countries), incorporating technology in education mostly means finding an affordable technology resource and just giving it to schools. The cost of the technology becomes the focal point for these policy makers, and the actual teaching/learning takes a back seat. Michael Trucano proposes a little thought experiment to force us to think about what we want to achieve in the first place.

Robotic billiards table set up. Allows users to play through computer controls and allows players using a physical cue to see visual hints about ball trajectories.

An example of what some people are doing to experiment with robotics (first half of video) and augmented reality (second half).

While not an emerging tehnology per se, social networks can serve as indicators of how, why and who is using and CREATING web content. I think the creation part of this exchange is key in that it ishere that the disruptive element of the technology comes into play. In my studies of Podcasts for the wiki assignment I found that many first time podcasters subscribers experimented with recording their own Podcast before becoming regular consumers. How does this relate to the facebook vs. myspace arguement, you ask? SImple, myspace is a more customizable portal/page that allows users to express and communicate their own, often marginalized socio-cultural identity. Facebook on the other hand asks users to define their online persona via 'freinds', shared photos, profile text fields, etc. For many recent immigrant and children, the formation and identification of an imagined community is an attractive thing. Somalian wallpaper, Manga flash videos embedded, Dominican Republic Flag .gifs waving all over..and MUSIC.

Here's a brief article with statistics on online social networking divide. What does your online social networking preference reveal about your social class?

Will online social networking create or perpetuate a "caste system" within online communities?