Digital Democracy Contest

Can your students engage the 21st Century government? Empower them with a contest created by students! The Digital Democracy Contest is a free game for high school government classes. Students compete in teams to answer questions using U.S. Government websites. The project is funded by a MacArthur Young Innovator award and a partnership with the Sunlight Foundation. It is based upon a successful collegiate contest hosted by Brown, Cornell, Northwestern and other universities. Sign up soon: http://digitaldemocracycontest.org

Social Networks Spread Iranian Defiance Online

As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of social media are challenging those traditional levers of state media control and allowing Iranians to find novel ways around the restrictions. Iranians are blogging, posting to Facebook and, most visibly, coordinating their protests on Twitter. More...

Gmail in real-time: Google does the Wave

Google is ready to start talking about its answer to demand for real-time--yet organized--Internet communication.
Google on Thursday publicly demonstrated Google Wave for the first time at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Billed as "the e-mail of the future," Google Wave is the result of a multiyear project inside of Google to reinvent the inbox, blending e-mail, instant messaging, photo sharing, and perhaps, with input from developers, connections to the world of social networking. More...

Time on Social Networking Doubles in a Year

The number of minutes on social networks in the U.S. rose 83% in April from the same month a year ago according to Nielsen Online. The total number of minutes spent on Facebook surged 700% YOY to 13.9 billion in April this year from 1.7 billion a year ago, making it the No. 1 social network for the fourth consecutive month. MySpace was second most popular but the number of minutes spent on this site fell 31%t to 4.97 billion from 7.3 billion a year ago, although it remained the top social network when ranked by video streams. Read FULL ARTICLE @ REUTERS...

Twitter Just a Blip So Far

RESEARCH BRIEF -- May 6 -- Findings of the Online The Harris Poll show that 51% of Americans do not use Twitter or have a MySpace or Facebook account. 48% of adults have either a MySpace or Facebook page, with 16% of adults updating their page at least once a day. While the media may have found Twitter, only 5% of Americans are currently using it. Read the complete article @ CENTER FOR MEDIA RESEARCH...

How Young People Develop Long-Lasting Habits of Civic Engagement: A Conversation on Building a Research Agenda

This report grew out of two meetings held by the Spencer Foundation to inform its Civic Action and Civic Learning initiative. This initiative aims to strengthen work about how and why individuals and groups become committed to civic action. It begins with the assumption that civic action matters for citizenship, that there are concerns about current trends in interest and opportunities for participation in civic activities, that education for citizenship is an important charge of public schools and higher education, and that there is limited research addressing how to foster civic behavior. Through the Civic Learning and Civic Action initiative, Spencer intends to support research studies that examine the commitments, conditions, and contexts that stimulate and sustain civic action, as well as those that constrain or discourage it. Three sets of influences frame their perspectives for examining the connections between action and learning: influences of civic motivations and other psychological processes; influences of learning experiences and environments; and influences of social, political, cultural, historical, and other contextual influences on individual and group action. (Spencer Foundation)

Virtual Worlds: Emerging Trends for 2009

MacArthur grantee Global Kids reflects on six trends in virtual worlds around learning and philanthropy. As RezEd enters its second year of funding from MacArthur, Barry Joseph thought it would be helpful to outline several trends we have seen emerging that affect learning and virtual worlds. Read more...