Are they a) learning aids, b) Cliffs Notes lookalikes, c) intellectual property theft, d) none of the above, or e) all the above? One thing's for sure: open courseware projects and sites are universal. They range from MIT's famous OpenCourseWare, putting all coursework on the Web for free, to RipMixLearners, a wiki for sharing class notes and other courseware at University of the Western Cape in … [Read more...] about Web courseware raising good Qs
Digital Natives Project
Invisible publics
In this digital-media age, teens' invisible audiences are many: relatives, employers, marketers, school officials, government agencies, and possibly even stalkers. Another way to think of some of these publics - not just marketers - is as "data miners," mining on an individual level (mining individuals' private thoughts made public) as well as mining profiles in aggregate. Yet, I'm seeing it said … [Read more...] about Invisible publics
Who’ll see what I post 20 yrs from now?
That's a question that needs to hang around 24/7 in the back of social networkers' and bloggers' minds, because - according to the authors of just-published Born Digital (Basic Books, 2008) - "at no time in human history has information about a young person been more freely and publicly accessible to so many others.” This comes as no surprise to many parents, but few of us know the reasons. Here's … [Read more...] about Who’ll see what I post 20 yrs from now?
Internet = ‘giant popularity contest’
The social Web is, in essence, a huge popularity context, Digital Natives blogger Sarah Zhang points out, with even Google search rankings based on how many people visit and link to the sites in your search results. We can't afford to assume "that what is popular is also most worthy" or we stand to miss a whole lot of quality material that hasn't yet hit the public radar. Sarah writes about how … [Read more...] about Internet = ‘giant popularity contest’
Online harassment: From one who’s been there
Lisa's experience of "cyberbullying" is probably the most common - some anonymous person(s) who made up "random screennames" and sent her IMs saying "stupid things" like "you're stupid" or "you're fat," she told a reporter from the Digital Natives project at Harvard University's Berkman Center. Though it probably wasn't cyberbullying as defined by researchers (see this), it certainly made her … [Read more...] about Online harassment: From one who’s been there