Tools scours Twitter for signs of bullying

Okay, just in time for school to begin again, computer scientists at the University of Wisconsin have developed a program that can scan through Twitter for signs of cyberbullying.  According to the blog post in Education Week/Digital Education - from a story on Good Education magazine's website, the program recently discovered 15,000 bullying-related Tweets in one day out of roughly 250 million Tweets issued in a day!  The researchers hope to develop the program further so it can also recognize danger signs pointing to children who are in need of an adult intervention.  In addition, according to a release from the university, they hope to create ways to show bullied children that others like them also suffer cyberbullying.  Check out the full blog posting here http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2012/08/edtech_notebook_twitter_bullyi.html or the original story at http://www.good.is/post/a-new-program-scours-twitter-for-school-bullying/

Company offers Internet lessons for students with autism

A new company is looking  to educate children with autism about online safety,  how to use the Internet and social media.  The company, Autism Expressed, offers lessons and allows students to set up their own Facebook and Twitter accounts has been picked up in various schools and clinics.  Check out the entire article at TechCrunch for more information or follow the link attached to Autism Expressed.

TwHistory

Okay, I know that those who know me have heard me say at least a hundred times, I will not "do" Twitter!  But ----- that does not mean that I will not let everyone else know about a FREE tool for those who do Twitter!!!  It really is all about the FREE!  Now, on to the tool ----

TwHistory is a new FREE tool (okay, actually it really started around 2009 ---- I just saw it mentioned in ASCD Smartbrief in August) that encourages students and teachers to use Twitter as a part of their study of history.  Students and teachers can sign up for free and created their own historical "reenactments".  Choose an historical event, create Twitter accounts for the characters, research primary source documents and think about the times, dates and durations of events to create hundreds of Tweets as they might have been sent out had Twitter existed before the 21st century!  Projects are submitted to the engineers at TwHistory, projects specify a start date for their event, and then it unfolds, over a day, week, month or more.

Check out Get Answers:  Frequently Asked Questions at http://blog.twhistory.org/faq/ for more information!  What a way to make history sooooo "21st century" and it is FREE!