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"A comprehensive and groundbreaking new report released Monday by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project has found that only four users of Facebook derive pleasure of any kind from the popular social networking website. According to the report, the remainder of the 950 million people registered with Facebook, despite using the site on a regular basis, take no joy in doing so, and in fact feel a profound sense of hopelessness and despair immediately upon logging in."

"This summer Sylvia wrote a number of excellent blog posts containing sound information for anyone that has questions about using social media in elementary school classrooms."

"This month non-human objects such as GPS devices and Broadband TV's are coming online in greater numbers in the last 3 months with AT&T and Verizon than new human subscribers"

"With all of the new technologies that are surrounding us, and to the many school administrators that are not feeling comfortable with Twitter, Facebook, etc., I would like to suggest three ways (as opposed to the typical round number of 10) that you can focus on your own professional development over the summer. Less is oftentimes more in the digital world as we move from simply being "literate" to "fluent" in this language. "

Coursera continued its ambitious expansion in the growing market for MOOC support today, announcing accords with 16 new universities to help them produce massive open online courses - more than doubling the company's number of institutional partners and pushing its course count near 200.

Online enrollment growth, while still substantial, is slowing. The 2013 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group reveals the number of higher education students taking at least one online course has now surpassed 7.1 million. The 6.1 percent growth rate, although the lowest for a decade, still represents over 400,000 additional students taking at least one online course.

"Instead of paying tuition and fees, students in the program would sign a contract to pay a percentage of their gross income to the state or their college or university after graduation for a specified number of years. The program would be available only to Rhode Island residents, and students would be required to graduate on time in order to remain eligible."

". By analyzing the data behind past, current and competitive Instagram hashtags, it's easy to set objectives by showing what works, monitoring progress and keeping track of audience reaction.  Whether you're interested in a high-level view or deep-dive data, the best way to set informed goals is to start with the numbers."

"Working 24/7 is not the only way to achieve success in academia. There, I've said it. A recent article described the working week of people across academia. This included the science professor who "compensates for the time he spends with his young children in the evening and at weekends by getting up before they do", and the early career researcher who "tries to take at least a half-day off a week". While many colleagues have similar working patterns and are happy (or at least not unhappy) working in this way, I am meeting increasing numbers of promising academics who reject it."

Coursera just raised $43m of funding - what potential do investors see in MOOCs? Based on recent Forbes article - do you see MOOCs as replacing parts of traditional higher ed? Will growing numbers of online students reduce hesitation of employers to hire online students? How does this affect institutions being proxies for quality? What applications are there for MOOCs beyond academic programs? (with interesting answer from Michael based on DS106)

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have the potential to enable free university-level education on an enormous scale. A concern often raised about MOOCs is that although thousands enrol for courses, a very small proportion actually complete the course. The release of information about enrollment and completion rates from MOOCs appears to be ad hoc at the moment - that is, official statistics are not published for every course. This data visualisation draws together information about enrollment numbers and completion rates from across online news stories and blogs.

"An intelligent tutoring system is computer software designed to simulate a human tutor's behavior and guidance. Because these systems are able to interpret complex student responses and can learn as they operate, they are able to discern where and why a student's understanding has gone astray and to offer hints to help the student understand the material at hand. Intelligent tutors provide many of the benefits of a human tutor to very large numbers of students. Intelligent tutoring systems can also provide real-time data to instructors and developers looking to refine teaching methods."

""People have been using clickers on this campus for many, many years," Mason said. "And it's always been a concern that there have been a number of different types out there, so students have to buy multiple clickers.""

Once we become aware of our multitasking, the number of tasks we're juggling doesn't change. What changes is our attention level to the juggling itself and, in the taxi example, our anxiety about the consequences of the juggling.

"After conducting this small study we have come to think about academic blogging in two ways. Firstly, many bloggers are talking together in a kind of giant, global virtual common room. Over at one table there is a lively, even angry, conversation about working conditions in academia in different parts of the world. In a different corner another group are discussing their latest research projects and finding common themes. Another table houses a group of senior and early career academics discussing how to land a book contract and write a good CV. There is also a meeting going on about public policy, and this involves a number of public and third sector people, as well as academics, who work in the area."

"An artist and comedian has been told by the publisher Penguin that her new satirical art book breaches its copyright, and if she continues to sell copies it could use the courts to seize the books and have them pulped. Miriam Elia, who has her own comedy series, A Series Of Psychotic Episodes, on BBC Radio 4 and has had a number of short segments on Channel 4, had produced a spoof version of the Ladybird books from the 60s. Generations of British children fondly remember these works, which famously portrayed the daily lives of Mummy, Peter and Jane as an introduction to reading and writing for young children."

"The search giant is collaborating with the Saatchi Gallery in West London to host a number of looped moving images, displayed on giant TV screens, which it feels are worthy of public recognition. There's a hint of competitiveness, as a panel of judges (including His Artiness, Baz Luhrmann) will select a single winning GIF tonight. In the meantime, we've embedded the finalists from six different image categories after the break, ranked according to how much we like them and whether any of the artists are mates of ours."

"Starting today, teachers and professors can apply for a preview of Classroom. Based on the requests we receive, we'll be inviting a limited number of educators to try Classroom in about a month. By September, Classroom will be available to any school using Google Apps for Education. Since we want to make sure Classroom plays well with others, if you're a developer or partner, sign up to learn more about integrating with Classroom."

"Systemwide, roughly 71,000 students, or 21 percent, complete their undergraduate and graduate degrees completely or partially online, a number that grows each year as the paradigm of higher education evolves from four years in a bricks-and-mortar classroom to an education available nearly anywhere on the planet."

"The chart below shows the number of deleted posts every day since April among a sample of between 50,000 and 60,000 users in mainland China. On September 28th, the most tumultuous day of the protests, deletions hit a record: 15 of every 1,000 posts, more than five times normal levels. Mentions of "Hong Kong police" and any posts with a #HongKong hashtag fell afoul of the censors. The data were compiled by Weiboscope, a censorship-monitoring programme at the University of Hong Kong. FreeWeibo, a website developed by GreatFire.org, another Chinese censorship watchdog, captured many of the deleted posts. Most were written by ordinary users: people with a few thousand followers whose non-censored messages revealed otherwise unexceptional lives, of dinners with family and frustrations with traffic jams."