Archive for 'Uncategorized'
‘Tis the Season to Share, But With A Cell Phone, Share Wisely
Posted on 04. Dec, 2012 by lynette.
It’s so easy to share photos using mobile social networking apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. The fact that we can capture something we’ve seen and need to share immediately with our friends and family is an amazing ability. One tap and you have a picture. One more and you have a massive audience for it.
During Hurricane Sandy, Instagram logged around 1.3 million photos tagged with the word #sandy. These were images taken by the public and shared with the world, so the rest of us could see what was happening, up close and in near real-time. It will go down as another shining example of social media’s usefulness and power to do good.
But the same tools can be misused, to the detriment of the person using it. We’ve seen a current trend among youth around the world taking and photos of private information in and sharing them in public places. Before giving your kids a smart phone this holiday, be aware and ready to give your kids the right guidance.
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Can You Trust That Link?
Posted on 21. Sep, 2012 by lynette.
In an age when everyone can author or share information to a mass audience almost instantly, it is more critical than ever to develop and sharpen our ability to discern the credible from the implausible things we see online.
There are many purveyors of false or biased information on the Internet – a company seductively advertising the effectiveness of its weight loss product, a politically-motivated organization hoping to persuade you to vote for their cause, a hacker attempting to fool you into clicking on something that infects your computer with malicious software.
Thankfully, among the mounds of information we find online, there is also the credible and the safe. It’s a good habit to have and teach others how to figure out which is which. I believe the skill to do this is made up of 2 basic things: information literacy and information security.
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Make a New (School) Year Resolution: Get Into Digital Shape
Posted on 14. Sep, 2012 by lynette.
Every January 1, I make a list of personal goals for the coming year. Year after year, 80% of the items on each year’s list are the same. Meaning: I’m pretty bad about keeping New Year’s resolutions.
But unlike the calendar year, the start of a new school year is an entirely different experience for my family. Whether by necessity or the search for sanity, our summer habits end and new habits begin. And stay. It’s a far more successful endeavor on September 1 then on January 1.
The start of a new school year is a great time to take advantage of this motivation and add a new resolution to your family’s list: Get into digital shape.
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If Facebook Had Launched Its New Anti-bullying Services in 2010
Posted on 10. Mar, 2011 by lynette.
Facebook has announced that it will soon unveil new services to help victims of cyberbullying. As part of the White House summit on bullying prevention, Facebook hosted a panel at the White House today to announce some of these new features.
As I watched the broadcast, I couldn’t help but think of how much had changed since 2010 began. Just over a year ago, the international spotlight was on the horrific bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide of Phoebe Prince. It is hard to imagine what might have been if these Facebook capabilities had existed then. How would things have been different?