Social Networks' Sway May Be Underestimated

By Rob Stein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, May 26, 2008; Page A06

Facebook, MySpace and other Web sites have unleashed a potent new phenomenon of social networking in cyberspace. But at the same time, a growing body of evidence is suggesting that traditional social networks play a surprisingly powerful and underrecognized role in influencing how people behave.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/25/AR2008052501779.html?referrer=emailarticlepg

ReadWriteThink: Lesson Plan: A Collaboration of Sites and Sounds: Using Wikis to Catalog Protest Songs

A Collaboration of Sites and Sounds: Using Wikis to Catalog Protest Songs

"Over the years, protest songs have served as a means to combat social ills. These songs cover a wide array of topics, including but not limited to the following: racism, sexism, poverty, imperialism, environmental degradation, war, globalization, and homophobia. In 2005, hip-hop artist Kanye West released the single “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” to bring attention to the issue of conflict diamonds. In this lesson, students research and analyze contemporary and historic protest songs and then as a class catalog their findings in a wiki.

This lesson works well with a unit focusing on a piece of literature in which a character(s) actively fights for social, political, or economic justice. For example, this lesson can build on a discussion of the issues that Atticus Finch contends with in To Kill a Mockingbird"

URL: http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=979

iChat and Student/Instructor Collaboration

Students demo uses for Google cell-phone OS

"Future looks bright for innovative applications as MIT programmers design software using forthcoming cell-phone operating system"

"What do you want your cell phone to be able to do? Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Hal Abelson put that question to about 20 computer-science students this semester when he gave them one assignment: Design a software program for cell phones that use Google Inc.'s upcoming Android mobile operating system."

URL: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=53784
Referred by: eSchool News

"Comic Relief: Comic Books Aren't Just for Entertainment"

"How the comics can help students learn to love reading"

"Comic books serve a great function in this one area: They make a young person equate reading with pleasure. Kids enjoy reading comic books. Once they can equate reading with something they are enjoying, then reading is no longer a chore, but, rather, a fun thing to do. Nobody reads just comics; eventually, you read everything."

URL: http://www.edutopia.org/comic-relief
Referred by: Edutopia News

"ARE WIRED KIDS WELL SERVED BY SCHOOLS?"

"An increasing number of teens are hyper-motivated to learn a special skill like creating podcasts, directing YouTube videos, publishing a website or hacking an iPhone, reports Stefanie Olson for CNet NewsBlog. However, teachers largely have not kept up with this trend and remain unable to inspire much of the same ingenuity. In addition, researchers have begun to notice that digital media is minting a new brand of kids who are creators of media rather than simple passive consumers. Within these digital environments, kids who create and evaluate media derive a sense of competence, autonomy, self-determination and connectedness among their peers. In fact, it appears many kids are drawn to create media online because their work can be immediately recognized and evaluated by their peer groups and potentially a much larger audience. In contrast, it can take kids much longer to reap the rewards or build recognition from hard work in school."

URL: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9928174-7.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=NewsBlog
Referred by: PEN Weekly NewsBlast

"BLOGGING HELPS ENCOURAGE TEEN WRITING"

"The big news from a recent survey that explored the links between formal writing that teens do for school and the informal communication they exchange through email and text messaging was that emoticons and abbreviations have crept into students' formal writing assignments, reports the eSchool news staff. However, there was another interesting finding that proves promising: blogging helps many teens become more prolific writers. While teens who communicate frequently with friends and those who own more technology tools do not write more often than less communicative teens, teen bloggers write more frequently both online and offline. In fact, 47 percent of teen bloggers write outside of school for personal reasons at least several times a week compared with 33 percent of teens without blogs. In addition, 65 percent of teen bloggers believe that writing is essential to later success in life."
URL: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=53663;_hbguid=e0da166a-2d66-434d-9c7c-01286ec3b126
Referred by: PEN Weekly NewsBlast

"UW considers mandatory laptops" - news published in 2005

"Although the sound of clattering laptop keyboards has already become commonplace inside University of Wyoming classrooms, UW officials and faculty members are considering a proposal that would require students buy laptops upon admission to the university.

Such a proposal is still in preliminary stages, but both the UW student government and the faculty senate have supported resolutions that call for the study of a mandatory laptop program. And all eight of UW's college deanshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif have expressed preliminary support for the proposal...."

URL: http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/04/27/news/wyoming/4834d1a285f7293187256ff00002232d.txt
Faculty Senate Resolution by UW:

Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation Newsletter Archives

A great resource on 1-1 computing

URL: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs042/1101604644883/archive/1102081845522.html
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