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"To acquire and practice literacy skills today, students and educators in Oklahoma City Public Schools require access to Evernote, Google Docs, Gmail, Edmodo, Posterous, Celebrate Oklahoma Voices, and other educationally appropriate, interactive websites. All these websites are currently (as of February 9, 2012) blocked by OKCPS for student access. OKCPS must stop its "draconian" and unjustified Internet content filtering policies and adopt BALANCED policies. The district must TRUST teachers and empower them to directly bypass the content filter with their login credentials when it is professionally justified for instruction and learning."

When deciding what to filter, the IT department considers two questions: 1) Is there a relevant ­educational need for the site? and 2) Does the site potentially expose students to inappropriate material? "The toughest area to assess is social media," Vomastek continues. "Right now, we block Facebook and Twitter during the school day but ­allow users of our guest wireless network to access them during non-school hours. There's no one choice that will make everybody happy."

Schools and libraries subject to CIPA may not receive the discounts offered by the E-rate program unless they certify that they have an Internet safety policy that includes technology protection measures. The protection measures must block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene; (b) child pornography; or (c) harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors). Before adopting this Internet safety policy, schools and libraries must provide reasonable notice and hold at least one public hearing or meeting to address the proposal. Schools subject to CIPA have two additional certification requirements: 1) their Internet safety policies must include monitoring the online activities of minors; and 2) as required by the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, they must provide for educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness and response.

"At this year's Educon I had the opportunity to collaborate with some wonderful librarians (Michelle Luhtala, Joyce Valenza, and Shannon Miller) and a fantastic student (Michael DeMattia) to share our experiences and have a conversation about teaching and learning in a no ban and no filter zone. The conversation is important because around the nation there are schools that are making the choice to do what is most convenient rather than what is right for kids. Rather than thinking outside the ban and empowering children to use the devices they own and access the internet they encounter outside of school, students are being banned and blocked. "

"Schools are buying tablets with a reckless ferocity. There are pronouncements of how iPads will revolutionize or transform education, without a coherent vision of what that might look like or a single example rooted in practice. The iPad provides an illusion of modernity with no real challenge to the nature of schooling-a win-win proposition unless you're a child. Add hysterical Web filtering, social media bans, and locked-down devices incapable of installing software, and the tablet becomes a tool of compliance, not empowerment. Tablets could have all the functionality of a laptop, but they don't. Until they do, I recommend that schools invest in laptops for student use."

Every entity must learn to curate their Social Identity. Social Identity is how the world perceives an entity. In the past that audience might have been limited or filtered to a select few. No more, social media is the great equalizer and spreads the word fast. Some might call this your brand. Regardless of the naming, data is being collected and directed for use about you. You are being watched and talked about, so what can you do about it? There are six elements of a person, group or government's Social Identity:

"Just as the elevated noise from ubiquitous blogging and publishing tools led to the rise of content curators and apps that filter wheat from chaff, today's hyperconnectivity presents a "drinking from the firehose" challenge to networking. Shrinking degrees of separation often leave people with a lot of "friends" but few relationships, and little indication of which potential relationships might provide real, mutual value."

Today is Banned Website Awareness Day, and all across the country, educators are doing their part to raise awareness of how overly restrictive blocking of educational websites affects student learning. The dialogue around filtering must also include bring-your-own-device policies, appropriate use of social media in schools, and overall responsible use of technology in school.

"Click through a few pages of istockphoto.com  search results for "mustache," and you'll find our precious Jared, sans the green filter makeover and the slightly off center crop job. Before Author Solutions paid for his likeness, Jared looked a little something like (okay, maybe EXACTLY like) the watermarked guy on the right."

"Why this insistent emphasis on choices and filtering now? It's obvious: when everything is available, within reach, accessible, the problem becomes not one of scarcity but of abundance. Where to find, amid the glut, what is right for you? How to separate the music from the noise?"

"Most Google+ fans I know don't mourn its closure as much as they mourn the loss of Google+ circa 2014. Imagine a social network where geeks have higher follower counts than celebrities. Where there's no advertising. Where trolls get crushed and ordinary people have a voice. Where smart people gather for long, detailed and interesting conversations. Where most streams aren't algorithmically filtered. Where photographs appear at full quality. Where social networking engagement leads to actual, real-life friendships. Imagine a social network that strikes fear into Facebook, and forces them to improve the site for their users. It's all hard to imagine. But for about three years, this was Google+. Google+ is dead. But the best version of the site died in 2014. We should all mourn its loss."

"Mr. Bridges represents a new but promising category in the American labor market: people working in so-called new-collar or middle-skill jobs. As the United States struggles with how to match good jobs to the two-thirds of adults who do not have a four-year college degree, his experience shows how a worker's skills can be emphasized over traditional hiring filters like college degrees, work history and personal references. And elevating skills over pedigree creates new pathways to employment and tailored training and a gateway to the middle class."

"They usually want some magic metric, some formula like, "two hours on LinkedIn + four comments in groups = tangible outcomes for the organization." It doesn't work that way. A great deal depends on how the worker chooses to spend that time in social channels, how well he filters and curates information, how she chooses the people with whom she's interacting. "

Educause's list of MOOC articles and resour

"Increasing use of tablets and the move away from Flash development is bringing HTML5 to the forefront of eLearning. In this new Hot Topics report, HTML5 and eLearning: What Managers and Practitioners Must Know, Judy Unrein examines HTML5's capabilities, why HTML5 is a worthy contender, and design and authoring considerations."

Two teachers and a few students at Monday's school board meeting questioned the decision, noting the other services provided by Google - such as Google Docs - in some classrooms. One student involved with the National Honor Society said his club uses Google's Gmail to communicate with one another. One teacher said her students use Google Docs to prepare essays. The program, she said, offers students a chance to review each other's papers and she can view students' projects from her computer as they are working on them. "My kids love this," said Laurie Davidson, a seventh-grade language arts teacher.

"Content curation is the process of shifting through the vast abundance of content on the Internet to select the best, most relevant resource, on a specific topic or theme,  so that we can organize, manage and collate the content for ourselves and share with others. Content curation is about working smarter and not harder.  Content curation is also a reflective process; as you curate resources you reflect on their value.  Reflection makes new information stick in your brain."

"an unfortunate and largely unintended consequence of the rise of social media is that instead of being better informed and exposed to ever-broadening viewpoints, research shows that Americans today are more polarized and draw from shrinking pools of news. Many people now operate in virtual gated communities as a result of their culled Facebook and Twitter feeds and the opaque corporate algorithms that organize people into invisible groups."