Privacy and social media

How do you keep your life to yourself?

Your web seems so vast, it's like you're out on a shelf.

Sometimes it is hard, I say to my friend,

But it is possible to maintain some privacy in the end.

One of my concerns with social media and Facebook in particular has been around privacy. The whole concept of "friending" people and gathering up hundreds of "friends" seems rather bizarre to me.

Apparently, some of the novelty has worn off as people are beginning to "unfriend" and keep more of their information private.

Unfriending and private profiles are the new trends in social networks

Youth & Digital Media

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard just released a report that looks at youth and digital media.

Key Findings:

1. Search shapes the quality of information that youth experience online.

2. Youth use cues and heuristics to evaluate quality, especially visual and interactive elements.

3. Content creation and dissemination foster digital fluencies that can feed back into search and evaluation behaviours.

4. Information skills acquired through personal and social activities can benefit learning in the academic context.

This research points the direction for teacher-librarians as we work with youth and digital media. There is a link to the complete study for download as a PDF and an infographic with a summary of the findings.

Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality - New Report from the Berkman Center

Multitaskers go multiscreen

As we have been talking about information overload and how to manage all the information that is coming our way, I thought this article in The New York Times was particularly appropriate.

Apparently, the trend in business is to have 2 or 3 different monitors on a desk, rather than flipping between overlapping windows on one desktop. I can see how this might be useful given that everything is done directly on the computer now - creating an assignment for this class involves flipping between blogs, VISTA, a search window and word processing. I can see how efficiency could increase if one had separate screens.

Richtel, M. (2012, February 7). In data deluge, multitaskers go to multiscreens. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/technology/for-multitaskers-multiple-monitors-improve-office-efficiency.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=technology

10 Tech Skills Every Student Should Have

A very concise yet wise post from Educational Technology Guy. This article suggests 10 basic tech skills students need and has links to help with each area.


The 10 skills are:

1. internet search skills 
2. office suite skills (create, edit, modify documents) 
3. self learning of tech and where to go for help 
4. typing 
5. social media - how to properly use and protect self 
6. netiquette 
7. security and safety 
8. hardware basics and troubleshooting 
9. backup data - how to 
10. finding & evaluating apps and software

I chose this article as I think teacher-librarians are on the frontline in terms of teaching many of these items. It is a good list to keep in mind as we go about our day to day interactions with students and teachers.


Andrade, D. (2012, January 30). 10 tech skills every student should have [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2012/01/10-tech-skills-every-student-should.html

Education & Social Media in BC

I found this article by Chris Kennedy, the Superintendent of the West Vancouver School District, on his blog Culture of Yes. 

Kennedy suggests that “British Columbia is leading Canada (perhaps even the world) in the professional use of social media in K-12 education.” He suggests some reasons for this trend such as early adoption of social networking, active news media participation in social media on education, etc.

The reason I chose to post on this article (hopefully still considered “current” though it is ten days old) is because I am just not seeing this where I work. At my school and even in my district, the use of social media to network and create PLNs isn't even on the radar. Despite me encouraging everyone to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, I do not see it happening. What are others observing in their districts?

Kennedy, C. (2012, January 15). Education and social media in British Columbia [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://cultureofyes.ca/2012/01/15/education-and-social-media-in-british-columbia/