Things I learned before 9:00am today from Twitter

One of the first things I like to do in the morning is check the most recent tweets I've had pop in since the evening before. Since I'm connected to people around the world I do get quite a few.

I'm not a teacher, but this online course for K-12 educators is great resource for online educators of any sense. 21 things for the 21st Century Educator has just what it says. 21 quick topics with everything from Digital Citizenship to various online tools to your own professional development.

I also was shown through tweets, a link to How to activate tethering on any iPhone without jailbreaking. I was interested to see this because I didn't know what tethering meant but knew it could be exciting. I'm now a little less excited because it appears I need a Mac to utilize the steps here. Maybe after I update my software and read this a bit more I'll figure it out. I'd love to be able to use my iPod Touch more at work.

I also was put onto this great article and great web/iPhone application that allows consumers to be more aware of what they are purchasing as they purchase it. GoodGuide is an application "that lets consumers dig past the package's marketing spiel by entering a product's name and discovering its health, environmental and social impacts."

This site I can't wait to try later this evening when I upgrade to iPhone OS 3.0. It describes How to Use the Best 40 Features of iPhone 3.0. I'm sure this will take up most of my evening.

The final thing that caught my attention before 9:00 this morning was a blog posting - Web 3.0 explained....again! This posting is great because it links you directly to two SlideShare presentations 1: Web 3.0 explained with a stamp (pt I: the basics) and 2: Web 3.0 explain with a stamp (pt II: techniques). Don't let the slide count of each of the presentations scare you away. Both are simple, clean presentations that you can read through in about 5-10 minutes each. They get the point across quickly describing to the reader exactly what web 3.0 is, how we can utilize it and how benefit from out own expanding knowledge of technology can work for us.

Kids and Thier Very Public Digital Rants

I was talking to a colleague at work today who's son was upset with her because she wasn't going to allow him to have something that he wanted because of misbehavior. It was something very mild along the lines that he was not to have a friend over after school.

The son, not being too happy with the answer immediately went to facebook and updated his status to say just that. There was no foul language in the status update, but clearly there was a bit a a virtual tantrum displayed.

I'm curious how other's have handled this kind of situation with their children. There are very few that are not more technically savvy then us now so we are all aware that they know how to use the tools. Of course not every "tween" has a facebook account, nor children younger than that. I can not even begin to imagine how often teachers may have to face these kinds of comments, especially those that have more digitally adapted classes.

I'm not a teacher, and I am not a parent, but I am very curious to know how do we teach "our children" who are only beginning to grow and develop their own online identities to remain digitally respectful of others.

All comments are welcome on this topic as a general discussion.