via technobombs.com
Facebook vs Google+ (still trying things out for myself)
via technobombs.com
Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information” – Uhm, WOW! takes away one of my reasons for hating Facebook
via techcrunch.com
I still have reasons for not liking Facebook, but this takes away one of the biggest. If this really makes my data portable, this is huge. Having my data portable means that I’ll probably stay with them longer. Funny, huh?
Facebook hits exam results by 20%…In other news, if you study 88% less, you’ll do 20% worse on the test.
via telegraph.co.uk
Talk about headline grabbing. Ugh! The real findings are that people who use Facebook “study” (not sure how they operationalized that) 88% less than those who don’t use the site (how did they find any??).
Here’s a link to the abstract. I guess I’ll have to wait a little while until I can see what they did. The abstract looks vague, which isn’t a good sign. Lest you think I doubt this finding, however. I don’t. I’m just glad I didn’t have Facebook when I was young. The immense time-suck it is would have swallowed me whole. I have problems with it as an adult.
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Facebook® and academic performance
Paul A. Kirschner and Aryn C. Karpinski
Abstract
There is much talk of a change in modern youth – often referred to as digital natives or Homo Zappiens – with respect to their ability to simultaneously process multiple channels of information. In other words, kids today can multitask. Unfortunately for proponents of this position, there is much empirical documentation concerning the negative effects of attempting to simultaneously process different streams of information showing that such behavior leads to both increased study time to achieve learning parity and an increase in mistakes while processing information than those who are sequentially or serially processing that same information. This article presents the preliminary results of a descriptive and exploratory survey study involving Facebook use, often carried out simultaneously with other study activities, and its relation to academic performance as measured by self-reported Grade Point Average (GPA) and hours spent studying per week. Results show that Facebook® users reported having lower GPAs and spend fewer hours per week studying than nonusers.
Teach indentity management early
via gocomics.com
Your posts today about that killer party last night where you did all that stuff that your mom wouldn’t like to hear about could cost you a job later.
Can you imagine having all the embarrassing (and potentially illegal) stuff you did in your teens open for your personal and professional world to see? I sure can’t. It was unlikely at that point that our escapades would be hear of or remembered past a small group of friends and classmates. These days, it’s sure that it will be stored digitally, somewhere, for the world to discover when you’re ready to run for President.
For this reason, teaching identity management is increasingly important. Teaching students (or at least your own kids) that they need to think twice before publishing anything. If your mother wouldn’t like to see it, you probably shouldn’t post it. This goes for letters, emails, texts, wall post, chats, or whatever other types of publication that you participate in.
One of the most important lessons is that all publications are potentially public. I don’t care if it’s to your best friend, don’t incriminate yourself. There is no privacy and no replacement for whispering in your friend’s ear while covering your mouth with your hand so the Feds can lip read 😉
Facebook | Teach the People | Recently Changed Communities
WOW! This has real potential. If you can get your students into Facebook (and access it from school), this could be a real challenger to Ning and other online social networking apps focused on learners.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not an LMS. This is an online social networking service that works on top of Facebook and provides functions that teachers might find useful. However, with the increased availability of widgets and the ability to embed them in Teach the People provide for an environment that could be just about anything you want it to be.
I’ve only set up a site, I haven’t tested it yet. We’ll see if the performance lives up to my first impression.