In conjunction with our central communications office and the MacArthur Foundation, Mizuko Ito (a faculty member in the area which I serve as Communications Director for) has released the following:

UCI researcher show time spent online is important for young people’s development

Teens who are into texting, gaming and “geeking out” are not wasting their time, according to results from the most extensive U.S. study on young people and their use of digital media. Instead, the study shows that when America’s youth go online, they are developing important life skills that adults often are hard-pressed to appreciate.

“There are myths about kids spending time online – that it is dangerous or making them lazy,” said Mizuko Ito, UC Irvine researcher with joint appointments in information and computer science and humanities and lead author on the study. “But we found that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age.”

Released Thursday, Nov. 20, the study suggests that parents should help facilitate their teens’ online participation and that educators could benefit from creative classroom experimentation with digital media.

Ito, with the late Peter Lyman of the UC Berkeley, and Michael Carter of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education, led a team of 28 researchers and collaborators, including UC Humanities Research Institute affiliates Heather Horst and Becky Herr who are now at UCI with Ito. For three years, researchers interviewed hundreds of young people and their parents; spent thousands of hours observing teens on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and other networked communities; and conducted diary studies to document young people’s digital media behavior. Among the findings:

• Youth are navigating complex social and technical worlds by participating online. Their worlds have new dynamics, as online socializing is permanent, public, involves managing elaborate networks of friends and acquaintances and is always “on.”
• Young people are motivated to learn from their peers online. They interact and give and receive feedback. They respect each other’s authority and are more motivated to learn from each other than from adults.
• Youth can connect with people in different locations and of different ages who share interests, making it possible to “geek out” or pursue interests that might not be popular or valued with local peers. “Geeked-out” learning opportunities are abundant, spanning topics from astronomy to creative writing and foreign languages.

Ito, a researcher at the University of California, Irvine’s Bren School (Department of Informatics) is a cultural anthropologist of technology use, focusing on children and youth’s changing relationships to media and communications. She recently completed a research project supported by the MacArthur Foundation a three year ethnographic study of kid-initiated and peer-based forms of engagement with new media. In 2008, she was awarded the Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies from the American Educational Research Association.

The research was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s $50-million digital media and learning initiative, which  explores how digital media change the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life.

Moya Watson gives a great recap on her blog.  Here are some highlights that I enjoyed from the recap:

Web meets the president

“Were it not for the Internet, Obama would not have been elected President,” said Arianna Huffington in Friday’s great panel, The Web and Politics (with John Heilemann, Arianna Huffington, Gavin Newsom, and Joe Trippi). “It wasn’t the age of the candidate that mattered in this election,” she continued, “It was the age of the ideas.”

Web meets (dirty) politics

We’ve just experienced the terrible flipside of “truth into our living rooms,” which is that the Internet can also be used, with devastating effectiveness, to spread attacks and lies into our living rooms. Here are some specific examples from the fight against Proposition 8 — all true:

• Videos propagated on YouTube in which the official “Yes” campaign equated gays with Hitler
• No On Prop 8’s Web site attacked by denial-of-service (which we overcame mightily, thanks to our Web techs)
• Personal attacks from people in the blogosphere throughout open, unmoderated threads (when another side might have had closed threads)
• Videos propagated by the official “Yes” campaign using children without their parents’ agreement or permission
• Gay people (and straight alike) getting anti-gay “Yes” ads served on their site because the yes campaign invested heavily in Google AdWords

Web meets TV

“TV is the biggest medium in America that hasn’t been democratized yet,” said @ev. “Twitter changes how people connect with people – if you expand that to a very large user base, it can change culture.” Pointing out that it’s not just social, Evan continued, “it has potential to see aggregate real-time information, like during the election.” Add Current TV to the mix and what happens?

“With Twitter and this broadcast model together, what happens is that you can get alternate viewpoints WHILE they’re being broadcast” -@ev

Green is the new Web

Calling himself a “recovering politician,” Al Gore took stage late at the summit to a standing ovation, saying that the “redeeming quality of the election” was that “all humans are created equal” and that this “would not have been possible without the Internet.”

Web meets the iPhone

AND more…. read the whole blog post and video/photos links here.

Hoping to get to the Web2.0 Expo in the spring.  Anyone wanna’ go with??

I have a migraine tonight.

So to divert the energy of agonizing about the pain, I thought up of new lyrics to T-Pain’s Apple Bottom Jeans:

[Chorus]
I have them Apple, Google stocks [stocks]
Shares with a promise  [With a promise]
Got the Wall Street lookin at her
Stocks hit the floor [Stocks hit the floor]
Next thing you know
Dow got low low low low low low low low

Them banks saying we cants
And bad loans with the straps [With the straps]
Feds turned around and gave the Fannie n’ Freddie a smack [Ayy]
Stocks hit the floor [Stocks hit the floor]
Next thing you know
Dow got low low low low low low low low

[Verse 1:]
I ain’t never seen nuthin that’ll make me low,
This crazy market losin’ my dough
Had a million dollar vibe and a bottle to go
Dem analysts, they stole the show
So miserable, I was once able
Professional, drinkin X and ooo
Hold up wait a minute, do i see what I think I
Whoa
Did I think I seen prices get low
Ain’t the same when it’s up that close
Make it rain, I’m gonna hold
Work the goal, I want the bank roll
Imma say that I prefer them hi stocks
I’m into that, I love portfolios
Stocks once were good for me, I gave Dow more
Cash ain’t a problem, as long as it grows

I had them

[Chorus]
Apple, Google stocks [stocks]
Shares with a promise [With a promise]
Got the Wall Street lookin at her
Stocks hit the floor [Stocks hit the floor]
Next thing you know
Dow got low low low low low low low low

Them banks saying we cants
And bad loans with the straps [With the straps]
Feds turned around and gave the Fannie n’ Freddie a smack [Ayy]
Stocks hit the floor [Stocks hit the floor]
Next thing you know
Dow got low low low low low low low low

[Verse 2:]
Hey
Banks what I gotta do to get your home
My pocket full of crap
And they ready for loans
People on the streets who lost their homes
Lives on the rocks that’ll make you moan

One stock (come on)
Two stocks (come on)
Three stocks (come on, now that’s three grand)
What you think I’m playin black jack
I’m the wo-man, I’ll bend the fed hands

That’s what I told her, her head on my shoulder
I knew it was ova, that John and Jane
Got me like a senator
They ready for cover, I couldn’t control ‘em
So lucky oo me, I was just like a clever
Stocks was hot like a toaster
Sorry but I had to hold ‘em,
Like a long-term investor
She showed her

[Chorus]
Apple, Google stocks [stocks]
Shares with a promise [With a promise]
Got the Wall Street lookin at her
Stocks hit the floor [Stocks hit the floor]
Next thing you know
Dow got low low low low low low low low

Them banks saying we cants
And bad loans with the straps [With the straps]
Feds turned around and gave the Fannie n’ Freddie a smack [Ayy]
Stocks hit the floor [Stocks hit the floor]
Next thing you know
Dow got low low low low low low low low

[Verse 3:]
Whoa
Stocks
Yea she was worth the money
Lil mama took my cash,
And I want it all back,
The way she bit that rag,
Got her them paper stacks,
Money Above my crack,
I had to handle that,

I was on it, good investments, let me shownin
They be want it two in the mornin
I’m zonin in them really good performin
But one day it had to stop, made it drop
Stocks did that pop and lock,
Had to break her off that gwap
Gah it was fly just like my stock

[Chorus]
Apple, Google stocks [stocks]
Shares with a promise [With a promise]
Got the Wall Street lookin at her
Stocks hit the floor [Stocks hit the floor]
Next thing you know
Dow got low low low low low low low low

Them banks saying we cants
And bad loans with the straps [With the straps]
Feds turned around and gave the Fannie n’ Freddie a smack [Ayy]
Stocks hit the floor [Stocks hit the floor]
Next thing you know
Dow got low low low low low low low low

Trade your PlayStation 3 and get free Taco Bell for life

The fast food company will trade $12,500 in Taco Bell Bucks for a PlayStation3 and then donate the game console to a Stanton teen center.

IRVINE – Taco Bell announced today that it is offering a lifetime of Taco Bell food to the first person who agrees to trade a new PlayStation 3 game console. Taco Bell will then donate the PlayStation 3 to the Stanton teen center of the Boys & Girls Club.

“The PlayStation 3 is on every teen’s holiday wish list,” said Bob Fulmer, Taco Bell Foundation executive director. “That’s why we’re offering one lucky individual tacos for life in exchange for giving Boys & Girls Club teens a gift that will keep them in the game.”

The tacos will be awarded in the form of $12,500 in Taco Bell Bucks, redeemable at participating locations.

Interested PlayStation 3 owners should e-mail their name and phone number to tacobellnews@tacobell.com. The first person to respond, based on the time the e-mail is received, and then send their PlayStation 3 will be awarded the Taco Bell Bucks.

The offer expires at 6 p.m. Dec. 1, Fulmer said.

Frahg took this photo while he, his fiancée and Luxion sat, slept and ate in line for nearly 24 hours.

Although I have to say the new Wii looks pretty cool (I like the bowling game!). If anyone wants to give theirs away, I will gladly accept.

It wasn’t too long ago that PkTwilite and I just got one of these:

Let me draw the supply and demand curve for the recent PS3 and Wii phenomena. Nah, nevermind.

[gv data="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7887931129019009883&hl=en"][/gv]

This might also explain why a guy that my friend has been courting has been “busy” finishing a project.

Those who know me know that I love all things Apple (and hate most things Microsoft). On the Colbert Report episode featuring iWoz, Stephen Colbert debuted this green screen challenge:

[gv data="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-917228285312193345&hl=en"][/gv]

Awesome!

So for your amusement (but mostly mine), here are my geeky and cool avatars. (Note that one eye is smaller in these. That is a true-to-life defromity of mine.)

1) 2) 3)
1) This is what I look like when I wake up in the mornings. 2) And this is what I look like when I don’t wear make-up and cover my face with cool sunglasses. 3) And here’s my South Park avatar. This is what I wear when I watch the show… really.