Google’s eMail gets social in Facebook face-off

Google Inc. opened a new social hub in its e-mail service on Tuesday, leaving little doubt that the Internet search leader is girding for a face-off with Facebook, reports the Associated Press. The new Gmail channel, called Google Buzz, includes many of the features that have turned Facebook into the Web’s top spot for fraternizing with friends and family. It comes less than a week after Facebook made changes of its own. Among other things, Facebook now shows a list of friends available for chatting on the left side of the page, similar to where Gmail now displays its chat feature. The Google Buzz features won’t reach all of Gmail’s estimated 176 million users worldwide for several more days. A link to the service will appear on the top left of the page, in a prominent position just under Gmail’s inbox tab…

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Carnegie Mellon to offer internet safety resources

Ninety percent of children surveyed said they use some form of online social networking.
Ninety percent of children surveyed said they use some form of online social networking.

Carnegie Mellon University will use a $20,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation to create and distribute internet safety advice to faculty, teachers, and students in K-12 schools and on college campuses.

The university’s internet safety lessons can be found on a new web site from its Information Networking Institute, called MySecureCyberspace, which also includes tools such as an encyclopedia of hundreds of web terms.

The web-based tools will be sampled at St. Bede School in Pennsylvania, the university announced Jan. 25.…Read More

Facebook post gets teen expelled

Taylor Cummings was a popular basketball star on the verge of graduating from one of Nashville’s most prestigious high schools until a post on the social networking site Facebook got him expelled, reports the Tennessean. After weeks butting heads with his coaches, Taylor, 17, logged on to the site from home on Jan. 3. He typed his frustrations for the online world to see: “I’ma kill em all. I’ma bust this [expletive] up from the inside like nobody’s ever done before.” Taylor said the threat wasn’t real, but school officials said they can’t take any chances. The case highlights the boundaries between socializing in person at school and online at home. It also calls into question the latitude school officials have in disciplining students for their conduct online. Since the suicide of a Missouri teenager who was harassed online in 2006, school officials nationwide have become sensitive to cyber threats. Taylor’s father said the language his son used was inappropriate and banned him from posting on Facebook. But Harrison Cummings said Taylor shouldn’t have been expelled from Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet School, where he was just one semester away from graduating. He has no history of school violence and has never been in a fight or suspended before this incident, documents related to his expulsion show…

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Study: Facebook isn’t a grade killer

Student researchers have found a variety of ways Facebook affects student grades.
Different studies have found a variety of ways Facebook affects student grades.

Facebook could be a distraction that drags down grade point averages, or a popular online hangout spot that has no impact on college students’ academics — depending on which university study you read.

Students in a University of New Hampshire marketing research course surveyed more than 1,100 fellow students about their use of popular social media web sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and they found “no correlation between the amount of time students spend using social media and their grades.”

The University of New Hampshire findings contrasted with Ohio State University research from last year that suggested Facebook had a significant impact on student performance.…Read More