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Note** Would be interesting for school districts to analyze their percentage of boomers (older and younger) and corresponds their technology training to these new demographics/usage. A new report from Forrester Research revealed some surprising information: apparently Baby Boomers aren't exactly the technology Luddites that people think they are. In fact, more than 60 percent of those in this generational group actively consume socially created content like blogs, videos, podcasts, and forums. What's more, the percentage of those participating is on the rise.

Though this article is written for the business sector, there are many great parallels with how we experience social media's acceptance in the educational realm. The suggestions that are given are readily applied to our setting, as well. In the enterprise, many employees think blogs are merely websites on which people talk about their cat or their latest meal. Many don't know the differences between and advantages of such tools as message boards, blogs, and wikis. They have heard of these terms in passing, but the demands of their day-to-day jobs have prevented them from recognizing the distinct benefits of each tool. Solution: It is useless to advocate for social media tools in a vacuum. Unless you're describing a solution to a practical problem, busy workers will not respond to buzzwords like "wiki," "blog," and "community." Your client usually has about a 30-second attention span in which you can sell a social media tool. An aide in my arsenal has been the excellent videos by Lee Lefever at Common Craft. Lee visually explains social media concepts "In Plain English." Common Craft videos quickly explain complex and sometimes unfamiliar technologies in a few minutes, sans the buzzwords, hype, and sensationalism. Problem: Cynical Clients Who Don't Want to Share Information Unfortunately, some potential SharePoint users balk at the technology because they have no desire to share their knowledge for the benefit of the organization. These individuals tend to equate their knowledge with job security; therefore, they feel nervous about sharing out of fear that they wouldn't be needed any more.

According to a recent study by Burst Media, a majority of web users are aware of the fact that a lot of websites and ISPs track, collect, and share information about their online activities. Over 80% of all respondents indicated that they were concerned about online privacy in general, but interestingly, only about half of all respondents under 24 thought that websites collect non-personally identifiable information.

YouTube today introduced a new feature that allows publishers to invite others to annotate their videos. Just a few weeks ago, YouTube introduced a new annotation feature that made it easier for publishers to add speech bubbles or spotlights to their videos. Now, you can send a special link to your friends so that they can easily add their own witty comments to your videos.

Google just released a major new update to Google Earth that now includes the rumored maps of the ocean floor. Google unveiled this update at an event at the California Academy of Sciences. After installing the latest version of Google Earth, you will be able to explore the ocean floor in the same way you browse the Earth's surface. Besides mapping the oceans, however, Google has also added three more interesting new features to Google Earth: easier access to historical imagery, the ability to record and narrate fly-through tours with the new 'touring' feature, and a 3D map of Mars.

When reading your RSS feeds, do you prefer a local application versus one that is online-only? If so, look no further than ShareFire. Besides being platform-independent (courtesy of Adobe Air), it is also completely free and open-source. It was created with article sharing in mind, as its name implies. According to its creators, Christian Cantrell and Dan Koestler, this was a priority. ShareFire supports sharing stories to AIM, Twitter and email, and posting articles to many services including Delicious, Digg, MySpace and Windows Live Bookmarks (now called favorites).

After searching some public 'waves,' we came across an educational wave. Entitled 'Wave in Class,' this wave was started by Loren Baum (a self-described "collaborative learning enthusiast" and graduate student at Ben Gurion University) and Sam Boland (a Politics student and "Tech Enthusiast" at Occidental College, Los Angeles).