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The YouTube Wars Prof. Akalın was probably pleased last week when, for a few days at least, we lost our access to that Eurovision winning song. In response to a satirical video that was offensive to the memory of Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, a Turkish court shut down any access to YouTube.com. The offending video was uploaded supposedly by Greeks wanting to antagonize their neighbors, and it prompted a war of offensive and counter offensive videos and endless (and pointless) comments.  It is against the law here to insult Atatürk, but since the offenders were "out there" somewhere beyond prosecution on the Internet, punishment was levied on Turkish Internet users instead. The story is even sadder as I remember attending a conference in Athens last fall with several Turkish colleagues, and we were pleasantly surprised at the warmth of so many Greeks, including several who spoke with us in Turkish.

Education for Well-being Education as if people and the planet mattered The purpose of education should be to create well-being. We should educate in way that places personal well-being at the center of all educational decision-making. We cannot achieve personal well-being without also simultaneously promoting economic well-being, social well-being, and environmental well-being. We must strive to understand the relationships between personal, economic, social and environmental well-being.

WebWatch Releases Landmark Study on Childrens' Web SitesPublishers of many major children’s Web sites should do a better job disclosing sales and advertising information to parents, especially as more kids at younger ages go online to play and meet friends, says a study released today by Consumer Reports WebWatch and the Mediatech Foundation. For the study, parents in 10 families used video cameras to keep journals, providing insights into the way children use sites such as Club Penguin, Webkinz, Nick Jr., Barbie.com and others. Footage from those journals, which can be viewed here, illustrates how young children respond to advertising and marketing tactics online. The study, "Like Taking Candy from a Baby: How Young Children Interact with Online Environments," used ethnographic methods and focused on young children, ages 2½ to 8. Download a PDF of the study.