Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Youth Vote 2008: How Obama Hooked Gen Y

Since the election, there has been lots of attention focused on how the Obama campaign was able to leverage many types of new and social media to engage Gen Y to get out and vote.

At the 2008 Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup East, held at Boston College just days after the election, several of the panelists talked about Obama's use of social media. Some of the most interesting and detailed election research at the conference was presented by Dan Coates, co-founder of SurveyU.

Dan's presentation, What Every Brand Could Learn from The Obama Campaign's Marketing to College Students, outlined some of the key demographic and media consumption trends among college students that the Obama campaign leveraged to get youth more involved in the political process. Dan also explained how marketers (or educators!) can use these same strategies to engage with this increasingly influential generation.

In this video, taken at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics panel, YES We Can producer Wes Hill and The Nation's Ari Melber discuss Youth, Politics, and Civic Engagement in the 2008 election year.

Also worth noting, and somewhat lost in the post-election euphoria, is the election of Aaron Schock (R-Illinois) to the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman-elect Schock is the first member of Congress born in the 1980s and he will be the first millennial to serve in Congress.

Related Resources

• A chat with the first Gen Y congressman (Thanks Anastasia!)
• Obama's Change.gov Adds OpenID
• The Obama Factor: The Net Generation
• Ruminations: 2008 Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup East
• Mind the Gap: American Teens Falling into the Digital Divide

Instant Messaging: The Secret Language of Teens

"Instant Messaging is a constant silent communique among kids about their feelings about the world, a bit like a Greek chorus always commenting in the background while kids are living in the world."
                -- Peter Lyman

Related Resources

• How Teens Use Instant Messaging
• NYT > Larry Magid > How Parents Can be IM Watchdogs
• IM on the Move

Truth and Consequences: Teens, Naked Photos & Mobile Phones

Anyone involved with Gen Y knows three things: they love their mobile phones, they are hyper-connected and they have no reservations about broadcasting their life across the social web. Very often they are lifestreaming without thinking about the consequences of their actions.

Take, for example, the mobile phone. They text, play games, take photos and oh yeah--they also occasionally use them to make a phone call. However, a recent investigative report by Emmett Miller and KTLA News found "a growing number of teens are messaging naked photos of themselves to their friends. Not only could it ruin their reputation, but it could land them in legal trouble."

One girl talked about how a guy at her school had a fight with his girlfriend and, in an act of revenge, blasted out nude photos he had taken of her to their classmates. The photos were forwarded on to more and more students, effectively making life at the high school unbearable to the point that she had to change schools.

Another student, commenting on the trend, said:

“I know in my high school that there was a a girl who took naked photos of herself and it went all through our school and it ruined her, 'cause everyone looks at her like a slut.”

But there are serious consequences beyond just being embarrassed or having to change schools. In his report, Miller interviews Detective Dan Morgan from the LA County Sheriff's Department who talked about the LEGAL implications:

"The detective says anytime a photograph is taken of a minor, a person under the age of eighteen, of their genital area involved in a simulated or an actual sex act, it is against the law, and considered child pornography. Detective Morgan says pictures and video clips of teens involved in sexual situations are becoming more and more frequent.

He believes the cases are under-reported, but has still dealt with quite a few of them. Sometimes the cases involve teens who have sent pictures or video to other teens, but other times it's adults who are enticing teens to take photos of sexual situations. And that is where the law is clear. "

Most teens interviewed for this report had no idea that there were legal implications for sending or forwarding nude photos via mobile phone or the Internet. In fact, while most told Emmett that they "would only send nude photo's to their friends," they were completely oblivious that their friends might pass these photos along to other people. 

This is an important topic that both parents and school officials should be talking about with teens. The stakes are even higher for a high school student who turns 18 and forwards a nude photograph of a boyfriend/girlfriend who is still a minor.

By doing so, they risk being charged for distribution of child pornography. Not to mention, if they are convicted, they face the loss of attending college, scholarships, and employment opportunities.

The important thing is for parents and school officials not to overreact. Banning mobile phones won't make these types of incidents go away. Teens will simply use another phone. Or have a friend take the pictures for them. The best approach is to sit down with your kids and calmly discuss the appropriate ways to use technology.

Think about it. You don't hand your kids the keys to the car without having them first go through a drivers education program where they learn the rules of the road. So why do we just hand them a mobile phone, computer or, for that matter, a social networking site and expect them to understand what behavior is and isn't acceptable?

As adults we need to also sit them down and outline how their so-called "personal information" can be sold to data brokers or passed around school by friends. We need to educate them on the consequences of lifestreaming and sharing too much information may have on their future.

Most importantly, we need to educate them that just because they delete that photo on their mobile phone doesn't mean that it isn't archived somewhere. Forever. After all, when it comes to the social web, your privacy is an illusion.

You can watch a video of Emmett Miller's entire report, The Naked Truth of a New Cell Phone Trend, by clicking here.

Related Resources

• Generation Text: New Research on Gen Y & Mobile Phones
• Book >Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online
• Stanford Study Looks at the Psychology of Facebook
  

CyberSurvey: What Kids, Parents and Teachers Are Doing Online

In the spring of 2007 The Cyber Safety and Ethics Initiative (CSEI) and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) initiated the world’s largest cyber research project, which by January of 2008 involved surveying 40,000+ K-12th grade students along with hundreds of parents and teachers.

Here are some of the key findings among students, parents and educators:

Key student findings:

• Children have unsupervised access to a computer and the internet at home as early as age 5, and that by age 7, 15% report that someone was mean to them online, while 7% admit they have been mean to someone online;

• Contrary to public perception, the majority of cyber offenses involving children, t/weens, teens and young adults are perpetuated by their peers, not strangers;

• The onset of cyber bullying beginning in the second grade and it’s not always the adult predator. Reports show that 45% of the cases are friends victimizing friends.

• 23.2% admit to lying about their age online;

• 1 in 4 children between the ages 9-18 report that they have been victimized online by one or more forms of abuse within the past school year that was not reported to a grown up.

Key parent survey findings:

• 90% of surveyed parents report supervising the home computing activities of their children;

• 14% report they have caught their children visiting inappropriate websites;

• 61% parents report that their children access the web from a private place in the home;

• A majority of parents report that their children use the web to do research for school (78%), play video games (61%) and listening to music or watching movies (50%);

Key Teacher Survey Findings:

• Teachers report that they feel confident that their schools are well prepared to use technology to facilitate student learning;

• However, few teachers feel prepared or feel they are prepared to teach students about Internet safety, social computing ethics or digital literacy;

• Teachers report that there is a lack of or inconsistent professional development and/or training on information security, social computing and web safety;

• Educators are divided on the issue of using technology in the classroom and whether or not students know more about information technology than they do.

Overall, it looks like parents are doing a good job of keeping an eye on their kids and what they are doing on the Internet. That said, most safety experts recommend that kids use the computer and surf the web from public areas of their home.

While the good news is that the stereotype of the Dateline NBC-esque sexual predator is far from reality, the bad news is that students are being bullied online by their peers. This is a topic that should be addressed both at school by teachers and at home by parents.

In summer 2008, as part of the Yahoo! Teachers Tour, I had the opportunity with my colleague Karon Weber to lead workshops across the country and teach educators how to use web and social computing  technologies in their classroom. Time and time again we heard from teachers that this was exactly the type of professional development that was sorely needed.

Moreover, they reported that they were lacking hands-on, practical training on how web and social computing can be used in the classroom to prepare educators for the influx of digital learners filling their classrooms.

You can review the entire findings of the RIT CyberSafety report, including results broken down by grade level, by clicking here (pdf).

Related Resources

• Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online
• Secret Lives of Teens
• Study Debunks Sexual Predator Myths
• Yahoo! Safely
• Cyberbully Pledge for Teachers
• Parents Guide to Social Networks

Ruminations: 2008 YPulse Mashup Boston

I just spent a couple days at the YPulse Youth Marketing Mashup East which was held on the campus of Boston University. As usual, it was a fantastic event! Congrats to Anastasia and the Modern Media team for putting together a really informative, fun and relevant event.

I have a few longer posts about the event brewing in my noggin that I hope to push out here on Barking Robot sometime next week. But I had a couple quick thoughts  and highlights from the event that I'd like to share while it's still fresh in ye olde noggin.

On Boston: The more time I spend in this city, the deeper I fall in love with it. New England in the fall is something that everyone should experience. One morning I took a walk along the Charles River. The tree's were heavy with orange, yellow and red foliage, the ground was still wet from the overnight rain and rowers glided silently up and down the Charles. Stunning.

On Boston University: Graceful old buildings, a deep sense of history and lots of energy oozing from the student body. Just fantastic. One morning on my way to the YPulse event, I passed the campus chapel and a beautiful sculpture of doves flying up into the sky. At the base of the monument, students had placed bundles upon bundles of flowers. I was curious, but I was also running late, so I didn't have time to learn more.

The YPulse event was opened by Dean Kenneth Elmore, Dean of Students at Boston University. He started with a super energetic and warm welcome to Boston the city and Boston the University. Dean Elmore was full of passion, energy and enthusiasm. As part of his keynote, he spoke about President-Elect Obama, collaboration, community and how great things can be accomplished when we work together. It was very inspiring.

Dean Elmore also took a moment to explain more about the bundles of flowers being left at the base of the sculpture I had seen earlier in the day. The sculpture is a memorial to one of the greatest alumnus ever to study at Boston University--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The morning after Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America, students began to spontaneously leave flowers at the MLK monument to honor Dr. King and his contributions, sacrifice and role in making the Obama presidency a reality. It gave me chills.

We need more people like Dean Elmore in the world.

On Virgin Mobile: Ron Faris from Virgin Mobile USA gave a really fantastic presentation on the Virgin Mobile Festival and Pro-Social Initiatives. He started by having everyone text "karma" to 68405. He then told us that for every text, American Eagle would donate a hoodie to homeless teen. Way to go Virgin Mobile!

Ron's presentation was really, really interesting. Virgin Mobile, and the Virgin brand, have done some really innovative, creative and interesting work in the music, pro-social, marketing and branding space. He also talked about the mobile and texting habits of Gen Y and how Virgin is leveraging mobile to engage and market to youth. You can read more on the live blog transcript.

At the end of his presentation, he mentioned that Virgin Mobile next pro-social cause is to become an advocate on the issue of homeless teens. Virgin Mobile will be launching an awareness campaign in the next couple of weeks. Want to hear something shocking? According to research conducted by Virgin Mobile, there are approximately 1 million homeless teens in the United States of America.

Yes....1 million.

These teens are homeless for a variety of reasons ranging from being kicked out by their parents due to sexual orientation, abusive parents or being abandoned. This figure just floored me. I've spent a lot of time working with homeless adults and mothers with children, but I was woefully ignorant on the subject of homeless teens.

I spoke to the Virgin Mobile team about their homeless teen campaign and I will keep everyone here at Barking Robot updated on how you can help out. I feel very strongly that the education technology community should be actively and passionately involved in this issue. Homeless teens are an education issue.

On SurveyU & MTV: Dan Coates from SurveyU gave a really interesting and relevant presentation titled, What Every Brand Could Learn from the Obama Campaign's Marketing to College Students. He shared lots of really good information, far too much to share here, but you can read more over on the YPulse Live Blog. SurveyU also had a very, very interesting report titled, What Happens to Media as Millennial Take Control?, that I'll blog about in-depth next week.

Dan Hart, SVP MTV Digital, also gave a very insightful presentation, Engaging Viewers Through Multiple Screens, where he talked about MTV's strategy to meet the demands and viewing habits of their (mostly) Gen Y viewers.

One example of how MTV was meeting the always on media habits of Gen Y was Backchannel --a social and interactive platform that allows "fans gather to talk about The Hills as it happens! Type your thoughts and don't hold back! Other players award points with a click of their mouse on the best comments. When it's your turn to click, earn points by predicting the comments you think will be the most popular." Mr. Hart said that this multi-channel approach has been wildly successful and popular.

On YPulse: As usual, this was a fantastic event. The next YPulse Mashup will be held in San Francisco on June 1 & 2, 2009. If you work with youth in education, technology, social services or marketing, you should--no you need--to attend the 2009 YPulse Mashup.

And now, time for that nap...

Related Resources

• YPulse.com
• Day 1: YPulse Mashup East Transcript
• Day 2: Morning Sessions, YPulse Mashup East
• Day 2: Afternoon Sessions, Ypulse Mashup East
• Twitter: #ymme

Twitter Vote Report: Tweet the Vote 2008

 On November 4th 2008, millions of Americans will go to over 200,000 distinct voting locations and using different systems and machinery to vote. 

Some voters will have a terrific experiences, and others will experience the same problems we have been hearing about for years - long lines, broken machines, inaccurate voting rolls, and others will experience problems that we haven’t heard about before.

We voters are using Twitter and other texting tools to report on how the vote is really going during this election, and we’re urging everyone to use the common word (or “hashtag” in Twitter lingo) of  #votereport as they do so. If that happens, we’ll all be able watch on maps and graphs how the election is going across the country.

That’s why a new citizen-driven election monitoring system called Twitter Vote Report was just launched. Using either Twitter.com, iPhone, direct SMS, or our telephone hotlines, voters will have a new way to share their experiences with one another and ensure that the media and watchdog groups are aware of any problems.

And YOU can help!  Be a citizen journalist!  Submit a report about conditions at your polling place. Four ways to submit reports to Vote Report:

• Twitter: include #votereport and other tags to describe the scene on the ground
• SMS: Send text messages to 66937 (MOZES) starting with the keyword #votereport plus other hash tags
• iPhone: We have a Twitter Vote Report iPhone app in the App store!
• Phone: Call our automated system at 567-258-VOTE (8683) to report about conditions, using any touch-tone phone

And if you would like to talk to a human to report bad conditions you’ve observed, please call our partner 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Related Resources

• Twitter
• Twitter Vote iPhone App
• Tech tools tap into Web for election info
• BBC Report: Citizen Journalism

Obama on Education Reform

Recruit, Prepare, Retain, and Reward America's Teachers

* Recruit Teachers: Obama and Biden will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location.

* Prepare Teachers: Obama and Biden will require all schools of education to be accredited. Obama and Biden will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively.

Obama and Biden will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.

* Retain Teachers: To support our teachers, the Obama-Biden plan will expand mentoring programs that pair experienced teachers with new recruits. They will also provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices.

* Reward Teachers: Obama and Biden will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward accomplished educators who serve as a mentor to new teachers with a salary increase.

Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.

Related Resources

• EdTech for Obama
• Seeding a New Community: Yahoo! For Teachers
• Yahoo! Teachers: It's About Relationships
• Research on K12 New Media Literacy

Text-or-Treat: UNICEF Goes Mobile

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF is a program that began 58 years ago and has helped connect UNICEF to literally millions of donors, fundraisers, celebrities and partners. This year, UNICEF is embracing both the social and mobile web to engage even more people in their annual campaign.

"For the first time ever, we’ve launched both a Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF MySpace page and Facebook Cause. If you use either of these sites, just add us as one of your friends. Then, when you’re writing on someone’s “wall,” or “poking” everyone you know, invite them to add us too, and help spread the word.

This year—for the first time—you can Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF with your mobile phone! Just text the word “TOT” to 864233 (UNICEF) to make a $5 donation* and help UNICEF save kids’ lives."

The Text-or-Treat initiative is a pretty clever program. When you visit the Text-or-Treat page, you can choose one of the virtual trick or treaters and help fill their UNICEF box by sending a text message. Cool!

I sent my text message to support Doogie. Which one will you support?

Related Resources

• Teach UNICEF
• UNICEF USA
• UNICEF: Trick-or-Treat Program

Microsoft to Embrace OpenID

TechCrunch is reporting that Microsoft (finally!) has seen the light and will begin rolling out the integration of OpenID into their network of cloud services. Sayeth the DasCrunch:

"Login standard OpenID has gotten a huge boost today from Microsoft, as the company has announced that users will soon be able to login to any OpenID site using their Windows Live IDs.

With over 400 million Windows Live accounts (many of which see frequent use on the Live’s Mail and Messenger services), the announcement is a massive win for OpenID. And Microsoft isn’t just supporting OpenID - the announcement goes as far as to call it the de facto login standard."

In other news, Yahoo! has announced that next week it will launch their open platform application. According to VentureBeat, the Yahoo! Application Platform (Y!AP) will "make Yahoo! more useful by giving third-party applications a way to plug into and link Yahoo services and user data."

Related Resources

• Azure: Microsoft's New Cloud Service
• Microsoft & Google to Join Open Content Movement
• Open Publishing: Oprah, Suze & Penguin
• On the Web, Even the Most Secretive Companies Eventually Embrace Openness

Call for Papers: 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology

Persuasive Technology is all about using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to change what we think and do. We are just entering the era of persuasive technology, of interactive computing systems designed to change people’s attitudes and behaviors.

The Claremont conference will assemble people from all parts of the world interested in such technologies by sharing their insights into how video games, mobile phone applications, web sites and social networking sites can be designed to motivate and influence people.

Academics and practitioners with an interest in research, theory, technologies, design, and applications related to persuasion are invited to submit their work for presentation at Persuasive 2009 to be held at the Claremont Colleges campus, in Claremont, California.

If you're interested in the mobile boom (and you should be!), be sure to check out Mobile Persuasion by my friend, Dr. BJ Fogg. This is a must read for anyone involved with digital media and education technology. BJ also is the founder of the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab.

Related Resources

• Mobile Persuasion 2009
• Persuasive 2009
• Book > Mobile Persuasion
• Book > Persuasive Technology
• Stanford Facebook Class
• International Journal of Computer Game Research

Tweet U: College Twitter Directory

CollegeTweetUp is a grassroots community effort to create a directory of college and university students who use Twitter. Anyone is free to add their @handle to the directory.

To add your name, just send a tweet with the message "college tweetup" and "school name" to @resawu or add it directly on the CollegeTweetUp PBwiki page.

World Golf Tour: A Virtual Wonderland

Despite the growing body of evidence to the contrary, if you ask people to describe the stereotypical video game player, most would describe a teenage boy who spend hours a day playing violent video games in isolation. But as with most stereotypes, perception is usually very far from reality.

Take the video gamer described above. Would you be surprised to learn that the average video gamer is a 35 year old male who has been playing for 13 years? But wait, there’s more.

According to the 2008 Electronic Software Association’s 2008 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry:

• 40% of all players are women and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry's fastest growing demographics;

• Adult women represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (33%) than boys age 17 or younger (18%);

• 26% of game players are over the age of 50;

• 56% percent of online game players are male and 44% are female.

Clearly there is a huge market opportunity for the video and online game industry to meet the needs of this burgeoning casual gaming demographic. World Golf Tour (WGT) is a free online golfing destination whose goal is to be the premier virtual world destination designed to meet the needs of an affluent, dynamic and active community.

So, what exactly is World Golf Tour? Take the popularity of online gaming, mash it with the nearly 61 million golfers in the world, throw in a dash of Second Life and you have World Golf Tour. Like other virtual worlds, WGT has a variety of key features:

• Members of WGT can create a customized avatar, build a social network, create a user profile and friend other players;

• WGT also has multiplayer support, allowing you to challenge your friends or hit the greens solo;

• In addition, WGT has amazing 3D graphics that make you feel like you are on a real golf course.

• Members can also check their stats on the global leader board, participate in skill challenges.

• WGT members can compete in tournaments for prizes, sharing scores, testing out the newest equipment and reading the latest news in the golfing world.

All in all WGT is off to an impressive start. In fact the membership numbers have zoomed, with unique visitors up an astonishing 922% over last month.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW WGT CREATED THEIR AMAZING 3D IMAGES

A couple things worth noting:

• WGT has amazing 3D graphics, but it eats up a lot of memory. In fact, my browser (I’m using FF 3.0.3) crashed, slowed down and/or froze. This happened on both my Mac and PC. Other WGT users have reported the same issues. That said, the WGT does an amazing job of working the community forums and helping resolve issues.

• If don’t already have it on your computer, you’ll need Flash 9 or higher to use the game. You can download it here.

• Taking a monetization cue from virtual worlds aimed at t/weens, WGT will offer virtual golf goods for members to purchase. I assume this will include things like better clubs and/or branded accessories for your avatar.

• Credits are the in-world currency at WGT. In order to play in some World Golf Tour online tournaments, you will need to pay an entry fee with game credits.

Things I’d like to see:

• A WGT widget that you can slap on your blog, website, or Facebook page;

• I’d also like to see WGT use social web tools like Twitter or Get Satisfaction as community outreach tools beyond the borders of the WGT environment;

• I found the WGT music to be very annoying. There really needs to be a “Mute” button in the header. (Tip: If you go into your profile, you can turn the music and other sounds off.)

As the buzz around WGT continues to gain momentum, I have no doubt that WGT will continue to grow in popularity among golfers and gamers alike. In fact, if the economic meltdown continues, don’t be surprised if this winter’s hottest golf retreat ends up being virtual the links on The World Golf Tour.

All in all the team over at WGT has created an impressive virtual world that has masterfully combined the social nature of golf with online gaming and brought it to the social web.

Related Resources

• Older Internet Users Catching Up with Gen Y
• International Journal of Computer Game Research
• Stewart Butterfield on Games & Learning
• Japanese Schools Embrace Nintendo DS

ILC 2008: Meet Pixton

Last week I attended the Innovative Learning Conference (ILC) in San Jose, California. Despite what seemed like a very light turnout, it turned out to be a great conference experience. The educators attending ILC were engaging and it gave me a chance to meet up with some of my social networking pals in real life. I also had the opportunity to see some really good presentations.

Like most conferences there was an exhibition hall with lots of vendors touting their goods and services as the latest and greatest learning tool. All the usual ed tech suspects, with their big marketing machines, were there in force.

But what really intrigued me the most was a couple from Vancouver, B.C who have created a mind blowing, game changing and all around awesome web-based comic strip generation tool called Pixton. 

What is Pixton?

Simply stated, Pixton is a social community where anyone can easily create, share, remix and publish their comic strip stories with people around the globe. If you find a great comic in French, you can instantly translate it into English. Or German. Or even Greek. Pretty cool, eh?

There are three versions: Pixtion for Fun (public), Pixton for Schools (education) and Pixton Storyboard (private).

Pixton for Schools provides students with an active and fun learning experience. It's also a good way for teachers to tap into the multiple learning styles of their students. Teachers can also create accounts for students without requiring them to have an email address. Pixton is also an amazing digital tool for students to create digital storytelling projects.

In terms of the educational value of comics, the Pixton team emphasizes the following:

• Pathway to Literacy: Instantly capture students' attention and motivate them to learn, using a familiar medium they understand.

• Collaboration: Foster peer-to-peer interaction between students. Or between students and teachers.

• Visual Learning: Reinforce your lesson through the associative power of words and images.

In terms of teaching, Pixton for Schools has a Lesson Bank where educators can share their lessons with other teachers. Teachers can also create their own private, safe and secure virtual learning environment (VLE) right on Pixton!

Beyond the classroom, Pixton would be a great way to quickly and easily build professional development, training, tutorials or other pre or in-service materials. You can learn more about the how you can use Pixton in an educational setting or the educational value of comics by downloading the free Pixton for Schools information packet (pdf).

The Pixton tool set is very intuitive, easy-to-use, and really fun. If you browse the public gallery, you'll see all the creative ways people are using Pixton and your mind will quickly overflow with ideas.

And there are lots of ways for you to share what you create with others outside the Pixton community. You can embed your Pixton comic in a wiki (like PBwiki), blog, or share a link via email, Twitter or IM. And soon you'll be able to print out your comic too.

Clive and Daina Goodinson have created powerful and fun learning tool that is bound to be a popular and powerful learning tool for the digital and traditional classroom. All in all, Pixton is an exciting edition to the social web.

Following in the footsteps of Flickr, YouTube and Twitter, Pixton is poised to join the short list of cutting-edge, top-tier and truly innovative social web tools. The really exciting thing is that Clive and Daina are just getting started.

I can't wait to see what else they have planned for Pixton and beyond.

Related Resources

• Pixton
• Pixton on Twitter
• Pixton on Facebook
• Pixton Safety Tips
• Pixton > Gregory Corso

Mashup Edu: Research on K-12 New Media Literacy

I am pleased to announce that the book chapter that I co-authored with Dr. Mercedes Fisher, "Pedagogical Mashup: Gen Y, Social Media, and Digital Learning Styles," has officially been accepted for publication in the Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level: Issues and Challenges, to be published by IGI Global later this year.

Dr. Fisher and I wish to thank the co-editor of the book, Professor Subramaniam at the National Institute of Education at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, for his hard work and direction during the writing and peer-review process.

In addition, we appreciate all the members of the peer-review committee for their feedback, suggestions and collaboration on this chapter. It's been a wonderful experience to work with members of the international education technology/media community.

We've saved the links for all the resources and references cited in the book chapter over on the social bookmarking tool delicious, which you can find here: http://del.icio.us/mashup.edu

Related Publications by Mercedes Fisher & Derek E. Baird

• Making mLearning Work: Gen Y, Learning & Mobile Technologies
• Social Software & Online Learning Design
• Social Media & Digital Learning Styles

Meet the Freshers: College, 21st Century Style

 

Meet the Freshers is a new video series on AOL's popular social networking site Bebo that explores what 21st Century "Freshers" (aka Freshman) are up to during their first semester at college.

The weekly series is hosted by teen publishing tycoon Tom Thurlo and is sponsored by The Student Room (TSR), an UK-based social network "where UK students share opinions and experiences."

So far, most of the students are focused on three things: sex, booze and, well more booze. Watching Meet the Freshers might provide most parents with more information than they really wanted to know or care to remember.

For these Freshers, college life probably isn't much different than it was for their parents. The key difference is that these young adults, unlike their parents, are lifecasting and documenting their adventures on social networking sites like Bebo, Facebook and The Student Room.

Hopefully these Freshers are savvy enough to know that Bebo never forgets.

Related Resources

• Bebo > Meet the Freshers
• Stanford Study Looks at Psychology of Facebook
• Gen Y: Sharing Way Too Much
• Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online