I stumbled across Ning a few weeks ago as I was looking for some end-of-year activities for restless students. Ning is a free service that actually lets you create your own social network. While this turned out to be an interesting exercise for my students, particularly once they...
In a victory for free-speech rights, a three-judge panel overturned a judges verdict that a juvenile committed harassment, identity deception and identity theft on a MySpace page, reports the South Bend Tribune The judges determined that the juvenile, called A.B., had her free-speech rights violated when the Putnam Circuit...
All the warnings, pamphlets and assorted educational pep talks about the dangers of social networking are apparently not keeping kids safe for minors. The Connecticut state legislature is taking matters into their own hands. Its proposing a bill to require MySpace.com and other social-networking sites to verify users...
The Victorian State government in Australia has banned YouTube in all schools after an assault on a 17-year-old girl was posted on the popular site, reports the Associated Press The effort to thwart cyber-bullying has resulted in banning the site from all schools in Victoria, Australias most populous state,...
Are you a new job seeker who spent more time studying in school than cultivating friends on Facebook or MySpace? Not to worry. Now there is a new site for people who need to fake their popularity, reports the New York Times. Everyone knows that employers just might do...
I was not the least bit surprised last week when I read RIAA cracks down on downloading at 25 colleges. After all, institutions are routinely notified whenever resources residing in their domain are associated with disruptive activity outside of that domain. For that reason, we take substantive measures...
The exact impact of social networking services like Facebook and MySpace on campus life is uncertain, but a panel at Cornell University aims to find out, reports the Ithacan Online. The Facebook Task Force - a committee of faculty members, administrators and students - is studying the...
As teens spend more of their leisure time hanging out online, it stands to reason that when a loved one dies, they would turn to social networking sites to grieve,reports the Associated Press "These are places where people in many ways lived their lives online," said Amanda Lenhart, a...
The Illinois Senate is extending its effort to protect children from sexual predators by banning MySpace from schools and libraries, reports the Chicago Tribune. Critics of the proposed legislation say that that banning those sites would affect those who cant afford the Internet at home, and schools already have...
A suit brought by the family of a teenage girl who was sexually assaulted by someone she met on MySpace has been dismissed by a federal court, reports Reuters News Service. Judge Sam Sparks of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas granted MySpaces motion to...
Bowing to pressure from media conglomerates and copyright holders to stop the posting of copyrighted material, MySpace has announced it will experiment with a new video-filtering system reports the Washington Post. MySpace is joining forces with software company Audible Magic Corp., which owns the rights to a system that...
In this wired world, one would have to look hard to find a student who doesnt take advantage of the Internet on some level, but they are out there, reports USA Today. Call them tech-nos. They are shunning the very thing that most students are embracing with a...
Collecting and disseminating information is often the province of developed countries, but Teachers Without Borders hopes to bridge the Digital Divide by allowing educators worldwide to share information and teaching materials, reports All American Patriots. The organization will offer a software suite, TWB Tools, which covers a lot...
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, parents of MySpace users are a little closer to being able to keep tabs on some of the information that teens post on the popular social networking site, reports Reuters. Due to government pressure, MySpace announced that parents will soon...
All the publicity about teenagers posting private information on MySpace must be sinking in. A new study showed that most underage users of the social networkng site arent posting personal information or photos that could attract pedophiles, reports Reuters. Although the study concluded that a good percentage of underage...
To ban or not to ban those pesky cellphones at school. Thats what Trinidad and Tobago schools are pondering after students began posting lewd and violent videos of students in the classrooms, reports Newsday. Schools everywhere are grappling with the new issues that cellphones and other technology present...
Words of warning about the dangers of social networks. Steve Kerrison writes on the Hexus Community that by posting personal details on social networks, students are creating great risks of identity theft, privacy loss, and embarassing themselves out of future job opportunities. He cites a warning by Prof....
Facebook, the popular social networking site, is joining forces with Pick-A-Prof, the website that lets students rate professors, to create a feature that allows students to see who will be in each class before they even add it to their schedule, reports the University of Wisconsins Badger-Herald Along with...
Under increasing pressure to deal with the presence of sexual predators and young children on MySpace, the NewsCorp-owned social networking wunkerkind will soon unveil a new safety feature called Sentinel Safe, Reuters reports. Business analysts say the the personal safety of its online users as well as the...
Schoolyard teasing and gossip, was once restricted to the playground, has reached new heights in the digital world, reports Adelaide Advertiser, an Australian paper. Parents and police officials in Adelaide have uncovered a hornets nest of school children being "victimised, teased and mocked" on an Internet "spider...
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