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New Touch Technologies Bring Screen Time to the Blind

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New Touch Technologies Bring Screen Time to the Blind

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AI Is Helping Scammers Outsmart You – and Your Bank

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AI Is Helping Scammers Outsmart You – and Your Bank

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The Battle to Ban Screens from School Now Includes Chromebooks and Tablets

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The Battle to Ban Screens from School Now Includes Chromebooks and Tablets

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Report: Closing Equity Gaps with Digital Tools

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Report: Closing Equity Gaps with Digital Tools

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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How online learning can support equity for college students

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A recent report from Every Learner Everywhere highlights 12 case studies in which instructors implemented technology to benefit student success, particularly for historically disadvantaged students.

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Our Responsibility to Teach AI to Students

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Our Responsibility to Teach AI to Students

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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It is not the academic integrity issue that looms the largest in higher education's use of generative AI apps. Rather, it is our students' need to gain knowledge, experience and skills with the technologies before they submit applications to employers. I can recall the days when we shifted from classic office tools to more sophisticated ones toward the end of the 20th century. The expectation arose then that graduates have experience and skills with word processors, spreadsheets and basic data-handling programs for most all office jobs. These replaced prior tools of the office trades, such as the venerable IBM Selectrics and desk calculators. More recently, new employees were expected to come with polished skills with search engines, spell checkers and data-visualization tools.

Now, job seekers face even more sophisticated expectations to implement an assortment of generative AI-powered chat bots and tools. Some of these tools are specific to certain career fields. Many, however, are generally transferable from one model to another. Yet, they all begin with an understanding of the underlying technologies of the modern workplace. As Times Higher Education reports in a recent spotlight edition, " Getting Workplace Ready,"

"The leap from higher education to employment has always been a daunting one, but in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), the post-Covid remote-working revolution and the pressing danger of climate change, the vision of the future has never been murkier. Today's students need their universities' guidance through the fog. Here's how to teach them skills that will always be relevant, offer them the best career services possible, link to industry partners and get them application-ready."

The annual 2024 Work Trend Index report from Microsoft and LinkedIn shows the astonishing rise in employee recognition of the need for generative AI skills:

"Professionals aren't waiting for official guidance or training-they're skilling up. 76% say they need AI skills to remain competitive in the job market. 69% of people say AI can help get them promoted faster, and even more (79%) say AI skills will broaden their job opportunities. In the past six months, the use of LinkedIn Learning courses designed to build AI aptitude has spiked 160% among non-technical professionals, with roles like project managers, architects, and administrative assistants looking to skill up most. We've also seen a 142x increase in LinkedIn members globally adding AI skills like ChatGPT and Copilot to their profiles-with writers, designers, and marketers topping the list ... When it comes to industries, surprisingly, administrative and support services, real estate, and retail lead the way-ahead of the tech industry."

The integration of generative AI into business, industry, nongovernmental organizations and government agencies is escalating day by day. A data-rich source of statistics is available at the updated AI statistics blog of Exploding Topics.

The impact of generative AI is international in scope. The India-based newspaper The Statesman reflects these comments in its article " Role and significance of artificial intelligence in diverse fields."

"The contemporary era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed the knowledge paradigm and learning trajectory so profoundly that it has become imperative for students of management, commerce, humanities, and liberal arts to garner adequate knowledge and proficiency of such emerging technologies in order to have a competitive edge in their professional pursuits. Dynamic changes in AI applications have made students of such streams increasingly adaptive to new technology tools through a continuous process of skilling, reskilling, and upskilling while embracing an interdisciplinary approach by combining knowledge with their existing expertise to become more versatile, efficient, and productive in workplaces."

Yet it is the research component of generative AI that is often most important to those who use the tool. The impressive ability to synthesize information, draw reasoned conclusions and point to other sources of information that may add clarity to the topic that is under study makes this technology stand out from common indexes and search engines. Times Higher Education notes a study by the academic publisher Elsevier that finds a high percentage of researchers are using the technology:

"Nearly one in three researchers have started using ChatGPT for work purposes, according to a major survey. In a survey of more than 2,200 researchers globally, conducted by academic publisher Elsevier, 31 per cent say that they have used the generative artificial intelligence tool as part of their work. In the Elsevier report, 41 per cent of researchers questioned say that they feel positively about the development of AI tools including generative AI, while 48 per cent say they have mixed feelings, and 10 per cent say they are unsure. Only 1 per cent say that they feel negatively about AI."

Generative AI skills are important to all students, but they are especially critical for those who are graduating, completing their programs or entering the workforce later this year. Those students need to acquire demonstrable skills as soon as possible this fall.

There are a number of approaches that can ensure that all of our students have access to learning modules on using AI. A good beginning point is to include knowledge and experience with AI among the learning outcomes for each major, minor and certificate program. We then can integrate them into our existing courses, finding the best knowledge fit for all of the students in a given program. Perhaps they can best be placed in the introductory course. In this way, we can ensure students are able to exercise their skills in following courses where updates and more advanced applications can be added along the curricular path.

A number of universities are offering noncredit, continuing education classes on generative AI that are also open to the enrolled student body. These can be offered online and asynchronously so they are available anytime, anywhere to the full range of people who are preparing to launch their first careers, as well as those who are seeking upskilling and reskilling to advance their careers.

How is your department or your institution addressing the essential need of your students to acquire generative AI skills and abilities? What are you doing to help your students gather these key career skills?

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Our responsibility to teach AI to students

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Put aside your concerns about student use of generative AI in your classes. It is our urgent responsibility to teach students now how to use the technology in their discipline-their careers depend on us. It is not the academic integrity issue that looms the largest in higher education's use of generative AI apps.

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To Address the “Homework Gap,” Is It Time to Revamp Federal Connectivity Program?

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To Address the “Homework Gap,” Is It Time to Revamp Federal Connectivity Program?

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To Address the ‘Homework Gap,’ Is It Time to Revamp Federal Connectivity Programs? - EdSurge News

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Pandemic relief funds helped many students connect to the internet to keep up with their studies. As these measures expire, there’s a danger that the…

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How to Reduce Your Risk When Using Personal-Finance Apps

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How to Reduce Your Risk When Using Personal-Finance Apps

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Over the past two decades, there’s been a sort of tectonic economic shift happening under our feet. More and more companies have switched from selling goods one by one to selling services, available as a subscription. These days everything from razor blades to meal kits to car washes have become subscriptions. But all that convenience has also come with a dark side – some companies have designed their offerings to be as easy as possible to sign up for and also as difficult as possible to cancel. Many consumers are now paying for way more subscriptions than they even know about.On today’s show, we discover how we all fell into this subscription trap – who is winning and who is losing in this brave new subscription based world – and what both the government and the free market are doing to try and fix it.This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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The Youths Have Spoken: Wallets Are Uncool. Go Digital.

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The Youths Have Spoken: Wallets Are Uncool. Go Digital.

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The Youths Have Spoken: Wallets Are Uncool. Go Digital.

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A wallet-free lifestyle relying on your phone is attainable, but it requires preparation and some compromise.

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Career Prep Tip: Teaching Entrepreneurship Students to Self-Teach with AI

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Career Prep Tip: Teaching Entrepreneurship Students to Self-Teach with AI

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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Professor encourages generative AI for college class projects

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A business professor at Miami University in Ohio encourages learners to use generative artificial intelligence tools to complete coursework, which he says prepares them for their future careers.

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In an Era of Fakes, How to Know When Someone Online is Real

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In an Era of Fakes, How to Know When Someone Online is Real

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An Anonymous-Messaging App Upended This High School

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An Anonymous-Messaging App Upended This High School

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It’s Teens’ New Favorite Word. It’s Everywhere. Maybe You Should Start Using It Too.

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It’s Teens’ New Favorite Word. It’s Everywhere. Maybe You Should Start Using It Too.

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It’s Teens’ New Favorite Word. It’s Everywhere. Maybe You Should Start Using It Too.

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Teens are taking slang from the screen to the schoolyard. It’s reshaping the way that they connect with each other and the world.

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A School District in PA says Students Made Fake TikTok Accounts to Target Teachers

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A School District in PA says Students Made Fake TikTok Accounts to Target Teachers

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A school district in Pennsylvania is dealing with the fallout after a number of middle school students created at least 22 fake TikTok accounts that impersonated their teachers - using the teachers' own photos in some cases - and apparently made some posts using racist, homophobic and sexually explicit language.

The incidents were detailed in a recent report in the New York Times, which called it the "first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States."

Daniel Goffredo, superintendent of the Great Valley School District in Malvern, just outside Philadelphia, said in a statement that it "saddens us to know that the students to whom these teachers dedicate their time and talents every day would misuse technology in a way that causes teachers undeserved stress and emotional hardship."

Students took real images of the teachers from the school's website and their personal social media accounts and wrote sometimes lewd messages on top, the newspaper reported. In one case, a fake account for a Spanish teacher used a photo she'd taken with her husband and children at the beach. Messages written in Spanish over the image read: "Do you like to touch kids?" and "Answer: Sí." Students viewed the fake accounts on campus during the school day.

Around 20 teachers, roughly a quarter of the school's entire faculty, were victims of the online trolling, the New York Times reported, adding that such attacks typically do not occur on such a large scale but rather target one teacher or administrator at a time.

The school district said it took "swift action" to investigate the accounts and also held an assembly for 8th-graders to "address the responsible use of social media." Several students have been suspended over the fake TikTok accounts, 6ABC reported.

Goffredo said the administration also met individually with the affected teachers and removed their photos from the district's website.

A TikTok spokesperson told NPR that the company was made aware of multiple fake accounts. When TikTok looked into the matter, some of the accounts were no longer available, and the company removed other accounts for violating its policies, which prohibit a user from impersonating others without disclosing that it is a parody or fan account.

A growing debate over social media and schools

The fake accounts appear to have caught the attention of some educators as early as February, according to the Times. By March, Nikki Salvatico, president of the Great Valley Education Association, said at a school board meeting that the accounts included "pornographic," "racist" and "homophobic" content.

"I ask all of you to consider the emotions, trauma and suffering ... incurred by our teachers," Salvatico said. "Every time an iPad is opened in a classroom, our teachers fear that pictures or videos may be taken and will be shared on social media platforms as a cruel meme."

The episode highlights the growing challenges posed by the influences of technology and social media on young people - and the often limited abilities of school administrators to deal with bad behavior.

Goffredo, the Great Valley School District superintendent, said the phony accounts were created outside of the middle school and in some cases may be covered by the students' free speech rights.

"While it may be easy to react in a way that suggests that students should have been more heavily disciplined in school, some, but not all, of their behavior is protected by the right of free speech and expression," Goffredo wrote in a recent note to the school community.

"After consulting with our legal counsel, and based on each unique posting, the district enacted whatever discipline it could, communicated with families, and implemented measures in an effort to prevent future behavior like this," he added.

In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that public school administrators can punish student speech that occurs outside the school or online if it disrupts classroom study. That case involved a cheerleader who created an expletive-laden social media post but didn't target any one person or name her school.

A Great Valley School District policy on student expression says the administration respects the right of students to express themselves but that "the exercise of that right must be limited by the District's responsibility to maintain a safe and orderly school environment and to protect the rights of all members of the school community."

There have been recent efforts across the U.S. to ban cell phones from schools outright. The Los Angeles Unified School District board voted recently to ban students from using cell phones and social media during school hours beginning in January, LAist reported.

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A school district in Pa. says students made fake TikTok accounts to target teachers

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Middle school students in the town of Malvern impersonated teachers and posted crude and offensive language on fake accounts. The superintendent called the incidents a "gross misuse of social media."

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If a Bot Relationship FEELS Real, Should We Care That It’s Not?

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If a Bot Relationship FEELS Real, Should We Care That It’s Not?

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If a bot relationship FEELS real, should we care that it’s not? : Body Electric

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Thanks to advances in AI, chatbots can act as personalized therapists, companions and romantic partners. The apps offering these services have been downloaded millions of times. If these relationships relieve stress and make us feel better, does it matter that they’re not “real”?On this episode, host Manoush Zomorodi talks to MIT sociologist and psychologist Sherry Turkle about her new research into what she calls “artificial intimacy” and its impact on our mental and physical health.Binge the whole Body Electric series here.Sign up for the Body Electric Challenge and our newsletter here.Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ, or record a voice memo and email it to us at BodyElectric@npr.org.

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The ‘Sift’ Strategy: A Four-Step Method for Spotting Misinformation

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The ‘Sift’ Strategy: A Four-Step Method for Spotting Misinformation

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Pioneered by digital literacy experts, the "Sift" strategy is a technique for spotting fake news and misleading social media posts, says Amanda Ruggeri.
It's no secret that misinformation is rampant on social media. And it's even more so in some subjects than others. Research has found, for example, that around two-thirds of the most popular YouTube videos on vaccines contain misinformation. The fall-out can be dire: an uptick in inaccurate anti-vaccination content online correlates with a decline in vaccination coverage, especially among children. That has led to larger outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases, like measles, than have been seen in recent years.

"Misinformation is worse than an epidemic," Marcia McNutt, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, put it in 2021, implicitly referring to the Covid-19 pandemic. "It spreads at the speed of light throughout the globe and can prove deadly when it reinforces misplaced personal bias against all trustworthy evidence."

There are many reasons why misinformation travels so quickly - according to some research, even faster than accurate information. One reason is that people are far more likely to share a claim when it confirms their pre-existing beliefs, regardless of its accuracy. This cognitive bias may help explain why even more misinformation seems to be shared by individuals than by bots. One study, for example, found that just 15% of news sharers spread up to 40% of fake news.

That's a sobering statistic, but there's an upside. As long as individuals are the ones responsible for sharing so much misinformation, we're also the ones who - by being more mindful of what we "like", share, and amplify - can help make the greatest change.

When it comes to not falling for misinformation, being aware of our human fallibilities, such as our quickness to believe what we want to believe, is a good first step. Research shows that even being more reflective in general can "inoculate" us against believing fake news.

But it's not the only thing that we can do. In particular, researchers have found there are several simple, concrete strategies that we all can (and should) use, especially before we're tempted to share or repeat a claim, to verify its accuracy first.

One of my favourites comes with a nifty acronym: the Sift method. Pioneered by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield, it breaks down into four easy-to-remember steps.

Perhaps one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern era is its urgency. Thanks to everything from our continual phone use to nonstop work demands, far too many of us seem to be navigating the world at a dizzying speed.

Being online, where both news cycles and content are especially fast-paced and often emotive, can put us in a particularly "urgent" mindset. But when it comes to identifying misinformation, immediacy is not our friend. Research has found that relying on our immediate "gut" reactions is more likely to lead us astray than if we take a moment to stop and reflect.

The first step of the Sift method interrupts this tendency. Stop. Don't share the post. Don't comment on it. And move on to the next step.
2. I is for... Investigate the source
Posts show up in our social media feeds all the time without us having a clear sense of who created them. Maybe they were shared by a friend. Maybe they were pushed to us by the algorithm. Maybe we followed the creator intentionally, but never looked into their background.

Now's the time to find this out. Who created this post? Get off-platform and do a web search. And because search results can be misleading, make sure you're looking at a reputable website. One that fact-checkers often use as a first port of call might surprise you: Wikipedia. While it's not perfect, it has the benefit of being crowd-sourced, which means that its articles about specific well-known people or organisations often cover aspects like controversies and political biases.

While you're investigating, ask:

If the creator is a media outlet, are they reputable and respected, with a recognised commitment to verified, independent journalism?

If it's an individual, what expertise do they have in the subject at hand (if any)? What financial ties, political leanings or personal biases may be at play?

If it's an organisation or a business, what is their purpose? What do they advocate for, or sell? Where does their funding come from? What political leanings have they shown?

And finally, once you've run your analysis (which can take just a couple of minutes), the most telling question of all: Would you still trust this creator's expertise in this subject if they were saying something you disagreed with?
3. F is for... Find better coverage
If, from the previous step, you find that you still have questions about the source's credibility, now's the time to dig a little further. What you're looking for is whether a more trustworthy source, like a reputable news outlet or fact-checking service, has reported and verified the same claim.

No surprise, but I find Google has some of the best tools for doing this. Obviously, there's Google itself, and if you're specifically looking to see if news outlets have covered something, Google News.

But I sometimes prefer to use the Google Fact Check search engine, which searches just fact-checking sites, specifically. Just keep in mind that Google says it doesn't vet the fact-checking sites it includes, so to make sure your results are reputable, you'll need to do a little further sleuthing - I like to see if an outlet has signed up to Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network, which you can check here.

If it's a photo you're investigating, use a reverse image search tool to see where else the image comes up online. Google has one, but I also like TinEye and Yandex. (You can also use these for video: take a screenshot from the video and put that in for your image search).

Your goal? To see whether there are any credible sources reporting the same information as what you're seeing, and saying that it's verified.
4. T is for... Trace the claim to its original context
Often, you'll wind up doing this at the same time that you're trying to find better coverage, at least if you're using the tools mentioned above. But the idea here is a little different. You're trying to find out where the claim came from originally.

Even if you see that a claim has been reported on by a credible media outlet, for example, it may not be original reporting; they may have gotten that claim from another outlet. Ideally, the original story should be linked - so always go there - but if it's not, you may need to search for it separately.

Crucially, you want to figure out not just whether something like this really is true, but whether anything was taken out of context. If you're looking at an image, does how it was described in the social media post you saw line up with what its original caption, context, and location? If it's a quotation from a speaker, was anything edited out or taken out of context or, when you see their full interview or speech, does it seem like perhaps they misspoke in that moment?

Taking these steps before deciding whether to simply share a claim might feel onerous. But the time investment of just a few minutes may save you not only embarrassment - but help ensure you're not spreading misinformation that, at its most dramatic, can even lead to illness and death.

Today, anyone can make a claim on social media. And anyone can be the person whose re-sharing of that claim is the one who makes it go viral. That means it's the responsibility of each one of us to make sure that what we are posting, liking, and sharing is, first and foremost, actually true.
*Amanda Ruggeri is an award-winning science and features journalist. She posts about expertise, media literacy and more on Instagram at @mandyruggeri.

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The 'Sift' strategy: A four-step method for spotting misinformation

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Pioneered by digital literacy experts, the "Sift" strategy is a technique for spotting fake news and misleading social media posts, says Amanda Ruggeri.

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How to Avoid Sharing Election Misinformation

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How to Avoid Sharing Election Misinformation

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The 2024 election season is upon us. While Election Day is November 5, early voting started in September in some states. As we wait for the final results to be declared, chances are, you're going to come across false or misleading information.

To avoid spreading misinformation this election season, here are four things to consider.

We won't know the full picture the night of November 5

Election rules and procedures vary state by state. Within a state, they can even vary between counties. Some states allow mail-in ballots received before Election Day to be processed in advance. Others leave the processing and counting of mail-in ballots until after the polls close on Election Day.

This means results can shift dramatically over the course of election night, depending on which ballots are counted first. This happened in 2020 when states where then-President Donald Trump seemed to lead shifted in favor of Joe Biden late in the evening.

If you react strongly to new information, pause

It's normal to have an emotional response to information you encounter online or in the news. But if the information you just received elicits a particularly strong emotion in you, that might be a signal to hit the brakes, said Rachel Moran of the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public. "A lot of misleading information is created intentionally to sow confusion or to create an emotional reaction. So if it's doing that in you, it doesn't necessarily mean that what you've read is wrong, but it is a good cue to sort of slow down," she said.

We have a desire to see our beliefs reflected back to us, so it's easy to agree with something if it reinforces our worldview - even if it's not true, said Hannah Covington, senior director of education content at the News Literacy Project. "When you see information that you just automatically agree with, that's really a signal to pause and maybe do a quick search."

Consider how trustworthy your source of information is

Open up your preferred search engine and do a quick keyword search to see what other trustworthy sources are saying about the piece of information you're evaluating. "If you don't see something reported by multiple news outlets, then it's probably time to just wait [before sharing]," said Covington.

When considering whether a news source is trustworthy, look for how it handles errors in its reporting. Trusting a source that makes errors might seem counterintuitive, "but actually correcting information when there's an inaccuracy is a huge sign of credibility," Covington told NPR.

Apply caution with information that's been translated from another language. A good translator requires knowledge of the language and the culture so they can discern whether the original message is meant to be satirical or ironic, said Laura Zommer, co-founder and CEO of Factchequeado.

If you receive a message on WhatsApp that's marked as "forwarded" or " forwarded many times," "be especially cautious, as this indicates that the author of the content is unclear and not the person who sent [you] the message," Zommer told NPR in an email.

Be wary of what photos and videos are supposed to "prove"

Take care when evaluating images, video and audio. They are easily manipulated or taken out of context. Take this 2020 tweet alleging voter suppression, supposedly evidenced by a photo of a pile of mailboxes. It reads, "Photo taken in Wisconsin. This is happening right before our eyes. They are sabotaging USPS to sabotage vote by mail. This is massive voter suppression and part of their plan to steal the election."

UCLA law professor Richard L. Hasen investigated the claim in his 2022 book, Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics - And How To Cure It. As it turns out, while the photo is real, the allegation of voter suppression was not. The mailboxes were pictured outside of a business which had a contract to repair old mailboxes for the U.S. Postal Service, not scrap them.

In this day and age, Moran said "the old adage ... 'seeing is believing' just doesn't really hold truth anymore." When you come across a piece of media online, it's worth asking: "is what I'm hearing or seeing AI generated? Or could it be real and edited in a deceptive fashion?"

Ultimately, "it's up to us to protect ourselves and our communities [from misinformation] by only sharing what's verified," said Covington.
NPR's Brett Neely contributed reporting to this story.

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How to avoid sharing election misinformation

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The 2024 election season is here. As we're waiting to learn the final results, it can be easy to be duped by false or misleading information. Here are four tips to help you avoid spreading election related misinformation.

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How Do You Counter Misinformation? Critical Thinking Is Step One

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How Do You Counter Misinformation? Critical Thinking Is Step One

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How do you counter misinformation? Critical thinking is step one

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An economic perspective on misinformation

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The Specter of Disinformation Haunts South by Southwest

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The Specter of Disinformation Haunts South by Southwest

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The Specter of Disinformation Haunts South by Southwest

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Artificial intelligence technologies are all the rage at SXSW. Is our democracy prepared?

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As Election Looms, Disinformation “Has Never Been Worse”

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As Election Looms, Disinformation “Has Never Been Worse”

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As Election Looms, Disinformation ‘Has Never Been Worse’

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A torrent of falsehoods, from home and abroad, have undermined what was once a shared faith in the honesty of America’s democracy.

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Teachers Want Cellphones Out of Classrooms

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Teachers Want Cellphones Out of Classrooms

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Teachers Want Cellphones Out of Classrooms

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Members of the nation’s largest teachers’ union say they want bans on cellphones during class time.

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How to Manage Cellphones in Schools: Tips from Teens

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How to Manage Cellphones in Schools: Tips from Teens

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By Arianna Prothero & Kevin Bushweller - July 24, 2024 1 min read

Remove Save to favorites Save to favorites

Print

A rising number of school districts and states are putting in place more restrictive policies to curb the use of cellphones in schools. The policy trend is a direct response to concerns that the devices are hurting students' abilities to concentrate in school and build meaningful relationships with peers and adults in their lives.

But in many cases, policies are being put in place before the people most affected by such measures-the students themselves-are asked what they think would work best.

To give educators a teenage perspective about the benefits and drawbacks of cellphones in schools, Education Week published interviews with three teenagers:

Those stories were used to create this downloadable resource with six tips from teens on how to manage cellphones in schools.
Download the Guide (PDF)

Arianna Prothero covers technology, student well-being, and the intersection of the two for Education Week.

Kevin Bushweller oversees coverage of educational technology and learning environments for Education Week.

Vanessa Solis, Associate Design Director contributed to this article.
A version of this article appeared in the August 14, 2024 edition of Education Week as How to Manage Cellphones in Schools: 6 Tips From Teens

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How to Manage Cellphones in Schools: 6 Tips From Teens (Download)

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Three teenagers talk about how schools should think about and manage students' cellphone use.

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Reinforcing Online Safety and Etiquette in Digital Education

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Reinforcing Online Safety and Etiquette in Digital Education

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Reinforcing Online Safety and etiquette in Digital Education

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Teach online safety and digital etiquette in a digital learning context. Learn strategies to foster respectful and safe online interactions for students.

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5 Essential Tech Talks to Have With Students

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5 Essential Tech Talks to Have With Students

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In many K-12 classrooms, the combination of one-to-one devices and internet connectivity allows teachers to provide students with "access to knowledge, communities, and opportunities that they would never have been able to reach before," associate professor Sarah Schneider Kavanagh and science teacher Tess Bernhard note.

That access-via tools like email and video conferencing, web browsers, and apps that can unleash students' creativity-can become overwhelming, like turbulent white water rapids, or, if managed wisely, feel more like a tranquilly flowing stream. What determines the flow is the guidelines and guardrails you set up, explains educational consultant Jamie Knowles.

Clearly defined policies, routines, and expectations can "help students use class time most efficiently" while helping you get the most out of teaching with technology, Knowles says. Having conversations to lay out your policies can also provide space to co-create norms alongside students, which can increase their engagement. Enlist their voices where possible and students are much more likely to take "ownership over the way the class is run and its daily culture."

Here are some suggestions for how to have these conversations with students at the start of the year.

The AI Playbook

AI is one of several big challenges educators face. Many teachers are learning about this evolving technology alongside their students without a lot of definitive resources, professional development, or training. An informal poll of 1,935 educators conducted by high school teacher Chanea Bond on X (formerly Twitter) revealed that 79 percent felt they didn't know enough about AI to "teach students how to use it responsibly in a classroom setting as a professional responsibility." But that's exactly what a lot of teachers are being asked to do.

Gold doesn't spend much time talking about student use of AI initially: "AI tools are a second semester tool," he tells students, focusing at first on norms of trust, reliability, and the classroom's intellectual culture. These need to precede the introduction of AI, he says: "You don't get in the car on the first day of Driver's Ed." Gold tells students AI is something they will eventually experiment with and advises them not to use the tools just yet. When you're ready to introduce AI, a simple " red light, yellow light, green light " system can help guide student usage.

Bond uses a different approach in her English classes-"AI generated or enhanced writing is not permitted," she says, and she takes time to explain why. Bond's policy, the starting point for her class discussion, is one that other teachers can use: "In this class, your job is to grow into a better reader and writer. In order to do your job, you must read and write a lot. My job is to provide feedback to help you grow in your abilities. In order to do my job, I need to read YOUR writing. I need to know YOUR voice."

Phones or No Phones?

The earlier you set up cell phone expectations, the better, writes Liz Kolb, a clinical professor of education technologies and teacher education at the University of Michigan. Especially in schools without access to one-to-one devices, smartphones remain a tool that teachers can use to benefit learning-but they need clear policies to avoid the ever-present possibility that the devices will be distracting.

In classrooms where students can use their phones for independent work or research, educator Sarah Said suggests communicating the "boundary for when phones can and can't be out." A stoplight management approach "allows teachers some flexibility to use cell phones when the situation warrants," Kolb explains: Posting a red button on the door tells students that devices will not be used that day. Have a conversation to engage students in thinking critically about the cell phone's role in the classroom: "Ask your students to help you develop social norms for what is and is not appropriate cell phone use during green and yellow button times," she says. "Should they be allowed to go on their social media networks during class? Why or why not? Talk to them about what to do with their devices in different social scenarios in the classroom."

Guiding Students to a Richer Understanding of Tech

Children "have many opportunities to interact with new technologies" but rarely get to create with them, writes Mitchel Resnick, a computer scientist and LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab. That's because computers are viewed by people of all ages as "information machines," whereas Resnick argues they should be seen as more like paintbrushes.

Tending to Your Tech

When the bell rings, many older students get up and walk out of the classroom almost without thinking, Hedreich Nichols, a district educational technology integration specialist, told me: "That's where we lose so many devices and things get broken." This can often lead to computers becoming "beyond use six months into the school year."

Digital Citizenship 101

While Digital Citizenship Week is celebrated in October, the first few weeks of school are a great time to set some ground rules around smart online behavior and digital decorum, notes teacher and edtech consultant Rachelle Dené Poth. It's particularly important as technologies like AI gain traction, she says-students should be careful not to enter personally identifiable information or simply accept an output from generative AI as objective fact.

Poth suggests that teachers at least emphasize that students should think before they post on social media, explain what is and isn't appropriate to share in online spaces and why, and model how to properly cite and use information that they access through the internet. Broader conversations should show students "the impact of one's digital actions," she says, including how to keep themselves safe online, protect their privacy and respect the privacy of others, think critically about and analyze information they encounter, and engage respectfully with both people they know and those they don't.

Poth has students "create PSAs to share information about one of the elements of digital citizenship they selected" to display in the hallways. Pam Fierst, an eighth-grade ELA teacher, discusses the potential issues and dangers of cell phones with students. What these exercises have in common is that they guide students to discuss responsible and irresponsible practices when using the internet and their devices. They are also a great way to remind students of general guidelines that they sometimes forget or ignore, like the fact that playing games on school-assigned devices is prohibited without permission, or that harassing or cyberbullying a peer has consequences.

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5 Essential Tech Talks to Have With Students

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To set the stage for successful student use of technology, start the year by discussing expectations around how tech like AI should and shouldn't be used in your classroom.

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Helping Students Develop Proper Internet Etiquette

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Helping Students Develop Proper Internet Etiquette

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If you enjoyed Downton Abbey as much as me, you might think of etiquette as knowing how to set a table worthy of a stately dinner. But that kind of etiquette might not be so useful in an online course, unless we're studying the Edwardian era!

In the context of online teaching and learning, it's more appropriate to think about the etiquette involved in engaging others in conversations and providing guidelines for smartphone use than how to handle a dinner guest's dietary restrictions. We want to apply the best practices of etiquette to every interaction in the course.

Netiquette (net + etiquette) is the "code of conduct" applied to online spaces. Teaching students about netiquette is just as important (if not more so) as teaching them to use technology or master content.

Crafting a netiquette document or post for your class and informing your students about the importance of these rules can help you create an engaging, respectful, and meaningful learning environment.

If hosting lectures or office hours live online, you might want to include guidelines for expectations around arriving on time, reducing noise by using earphones and the mute button, and minimizing distractions the best they can.

Keep in mind that students might have their children or siblings home from school or day care and some flexibility and understanding might need to be extended during this season.

Another area for need of netiquette guidelines is in the use of discussion boards. I often share things like this with my students:

Use proper language. This means no emoticons, text message language, or swear words. The discussion board is like a workplace and is meant to be professional.

Run a spelling and grammar check before posting anything to the discussion board. This is especially important if your instructor is grading these comments.

Read through your comments at least twice before hitting submit. (Some professors use settings that allow students to edit their responses, while others don't.)

Don't type in ALL CAPS! If you do, it will look like you are screaming.

Recognize and respect diversity. It's ok to ask questions to clarify things you don't understand. If you're not sure, email the professor privately for more information.

Avoid sarcasm and dark humor. Take your posts seriously. Never say online what you wouldn't say in real life to another person's face. Your posts are a permanent record, so think about the type of record you want to leave behind.

If you are frustrated and finding the course material difficult, please reach out to the professor, use the tutor resources, etc. You can ask your peers for study tips. A discussion board is not the venue to complain about why you need to take this course or how hard you have to work.

Don't wait until the last minute to make your post. Allow time for other students to respond before the deadline. Likewise, don't wait to post your replies until the deadline; the author deserves an opportunity to address any questions you have or respond to points you make.

Before asking a question, check the instructor's FAQs or search your Learning Management System resources and/or the internet to see if the answer is obvious or easy to find.

Be forgiving. If your classmate makes a mistake, whether it's a typo or grammatical error, don't badger him or her for it. Just let it go.

The same rules apply for email. "Hey, teach, heeeelp!" is probably not the best way to ask your professor a question. You should communicate with your professor in the same way that you would speak to your boss or a potential employer. Also, any email you send your professor should always include your name and which class you are in.

While it is tempting to think we should only have to focus on content, surveys of Fortune 500 company CEOs over the years have resulted in very similar responses: they want students who can communicate clearly, collaborate well, think critically, etc.

We know those skills are being developed and enhanced in our courses everyday, so it's worthwhile to spend some time encouraging them to be respectful, contributing members of our online course communities.

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Helping students develop proper internet etiquette

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Teaching students internet etiquette is just as important - if not more so - as teaching them to use digital course materials or master content.

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“I Felt Shameful and Fearful”: Teen Who Saw AI Fake Nudes of Herself Speaks Out

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“I Felt Shameful and Fearful”: Teen Who Saw AI Fake Nudes of Herself Speaks Out

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AI Fake Nudes Are Now a Frightening Reality for Teens

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AI Fake Nudes Are Now a Frightening Reality for Teens

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Parents Sue After School Disciplined Student for AI Use: Takeaways for Educators

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Parents Sue After School Disciplined Student for AI Use: Takeaways for Educators

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Parents Sue After School Disciplined Student for AI Use: Takeaways for Educators

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The Massachusetts lawsuit is one of the first to highlight the benefits and challenges of generative AI use in the classroom.

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A Historic New Law Would Protect Kids Online and Hold Tech Companies Accountable

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A Historic New Law Would Protect Kids Online and Hold Tech Companies Accountable

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Kristin Bride lost her 16-year-old son, Carson, to suicide in 2020. She says shortly before he took his own life he was bullied on the social media site Snapchat.

"Carson received over 100 harassing and sexually explicit texts from his high school classmates through an anonymous messaging app on Snapchat," Bride says. "The last search on his phone before he ended his life was for hacks to find out who was doing this to him."

Shortly after her son's death, Bride joined Parents for Safe Online Spaces, an organization of families who lost their children after they were exposed to toxic online content. Some died by suicide after cyberbullying or sextortion; others after participating in viral challenges involving self-harm or taking drugs sold by online dealers.

Bride is also part of an ongoing effort on Capitol Hill to craft legislation that would hold social media sites and other tech companies accountable for keeping minors safe online.

Last year, a group of bipartisan senators introduced the Kids Online Safety Act, a groundbreaking piece of legislation addressing growing concern from parents about the impact of online and social media platforms on children and teens.

The legislation passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support earlier this week, and the measure now heads to the Republican-led House.

New law will require companies to limit harmful content

The last time Congress passed a law to protect children on the internet was in 1998 - before Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and smartphones. The legislation would require tech companies to implement measures to help protect kids from exposure to harmful content.

For example, companies would be prohibited from using algorithms to push content that underage users did notspecifically search for. This addresses a huge concern of parents and advocates: that kids are targeted with content that promotes harmful behavior, such as eating disorders, sexual exploitation and substance abuse.

The bill would also raise the maximum age of children covered under the law to 17; ban companies from collecting data from minors, including biometric indicators such as fingerprints, voiceprints and facial imagery;and improve parental controls.

Josh Golin is the executive director of Fairplay, a nonprofit working to protect kids from marketing and dangerous online content from Big Tech.

"For the first time ever, social media and other online platforms will have a legal responsibility to consider how they are impacting children," Golin says.

Golin says it's important for online platforms and members of Congress to recognize that regulating the use of social media for their kids has become overwhelming for families.

No parent is looking for "another full-time job," he says.

"We need to put the responsibility back on where it belongs, which is on these companies who are the ones controlling what these kids are seeing. We need to ensure that these kids are not being sent down such dangerous rabbit holes," says Golin.

Advocates hope new law will help fight cyberbullying

Parent advocates of the bill say the new requirements will make it easier to protect their kids from becoming victims of cyberbullying. They say more parent-friendly user settings will make it easier to control what their kids are exposed to online.

Kristin Bride says the anonymous messaging feature on Snapchat ultimately led to her son's death.

"I absolutely believe that my son would be alive if this legislation was in place at the time," she says.

While cyberbullying is not directly called out in the legislation, its impacts - anxiety, depression, suicidal and self-harming behaviors - are addressed, says Vaishnavi J., founder of Vyanams Strategies, an organization that advises companies on how to create safer tech productsfor children.

"Cyberbullying is a really challenging issue to navigate because it's so coded and it's constantly evolving," says J.

J. notes that cyberbullying disproportionately impacts girls and young women of color.

"They are typically under-represented from marginalized communities. They aren't getting the range of societal support they deserve," J. says. "That tends to extend to online as well."

J. also says boys are under-represented in the research when it comes to cyberbullying, something that she says isn't talked about enough.

Boys "don't tend to tell you that they're being harassed or bullied. Instead, they choose to suffer in silence ... and that's a real problem," she says.

All 50 states have laws against bullying, and every state - except Wisconsin and Alaska - include specific references to cyberbullying. Currently, there are no federal laws that criminalize cyberbullying.

More challenges lie ahead

Along with the safety bill, the Senate also passed online privacy legislation that would prohibit online companies from collecting personal information from kids under the age of 17 without their consent.

Even though the online safety bill has broad bipartisan support, some lawmakers argue that the legislation could violate free speech rights. Others are concerned that the new regulations could prevent some kids from accessing information on LGBTQ+ issues or reproductive rights.

Social media companies including Microsoft, X and Snapchat have voiced support for the measure, while TikTok and Meta have called it unconstitutional.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says there's still more work to be done to regulate online protections for kids, but the new online safety law would bea step in the right direction. The bill now heads to the Republican-led House where Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled support for the legislation.

Maurine Molak is among the families who worked with the Senate to get the bill passed. She lost her 16-year-old son, David, to suicide after months of relentless online threats and cyberbullying. Molak is urging every House member to vote in favor of what she says is a game-changing bill.

"It's game-changing for young people. It's game-changing for families," she says. "I hear it over and over again that it's like a game of Whac-A-Mole. As soon as parents figure out to keep their kids safe on one platform - three more pop up."

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A historic new law would protect kids online and hold tech companies accountable

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The new law would require tech companies to limit children's exposure to dangerous online content. The last time Congress legislated on kids online safety was before social media and smartphones.

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Families Battle Tech Giants as Australia Pushes for an Under-16 Social -Media Ban

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Families Battle Tech Giants as Australia Pushes for an Under-16 Social -Media Ban

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I Built a Chatbot to Replace Me. It Went a Little Wild

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I Built a Chatbot to Replace Me. It Went a Little Wild

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Eight Newspapers Sue OpenAI, Microsoft for Copyright Infringement

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Eight Newspapers Sue OpenAI, Microsoft for Copyright Infringement

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Eight daily newspapers including The New York Daily News and The Chicago Tribune sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Tuesday seeking to stop the tech companies' from using copyrighted articles to train artificial intelligence chatbots.

The copyright infringement suit claims the maker of ChatGPT copied stories from the newspapers "with impunity," never seeking permission or payment for the use of millions of articles that were used by the popular chatbot to respond to questions.

ChatGPT, which relies on vast amount of data scraped from the internet, has become a direct competitor to the newspapers at a time when the news industry has been pummeled by sinking advertising and subscription revenue, the lawsuit argues.

In addition, according to the suit, ChatGPT at times falsely attributes reporting to the newspapers in the answers it generates, tarnishing the reputation of the news outlets.

For instance, the suit cites an example in which ChatGPT states that The Chicago Tribune has recommended an infant lounger the paper never endorsed. In fact, the product the chatbot mentions had been linked to infant deaths and recalled.

In another example noted by the suit, ChatGPT was asked if smoking cures asthma, and the chatbot fabricated that The Denver Post published research indicating that smoking can be a cure for asthma. That assertion is obviously false, and the paper never published such research.

"This issue is not just a business problem for a handful of newspaper or the newspaper industry at large," lawyers for the newspapers wrote in the suit. "It is a critical issue for civil life in America."

In a statement, OpenAI said it takes "great care" to support news organizations in building its products.

"Along with our news partners, we see immense potential for AI tools like ChatGPT to deepen publishers' relationships with readers and enhance the news experience," said a spokesperson for OpenAI.

Microsoft, OpenAI's biggest financial backer, did not respond to a request for comment.

Attorneys for the newspapers, which are all owned by the New York investment fund Alden Global Capital, are asking for unspecified monetary damages and for the practice of using its copyrighted work to end.

The suit additionally asks for the destruction of any AI models OpenAI uses that incorporate works published by the newspapers - something AI experts have said would be nearly impossible to accomplish without completely rebuilding its models, an incredibly arduous and costly endeavor.

Re-training an AI model could cost "on the order of a hundred million dollars for earlier models, and a billion or even multiple billions for future models," said Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University and the author of the forthcoming book Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Make Sure That AI Work For Us.

Marcus said trying to filter out copyrighted material from a dataset can be complicated because even if there was a master list of all the URLs that had to be removed, sites like Reddit often include versions of copyrighted stories in posts, meaning there is "no guarantee that you won't have scraped copies from elsewhere on the internet," Marcus added.

Newspapers' suit fuels legal showdown over AI and copyright law

It is the latest legal headache for OpenAI, which was hit with a similar copyright infringement lawsuit from The New York Times last year.

Together, the legal challenges are set to be a high-stakes court battle pitting one of the world's leading AI companies against news publishers, duking it out over an area of law that experts say is unresolved and murky.

To the newspaper publisher, the case appears straightforward: OpenAI, they claim, stole its copyrighted material.

"This lawsuit is about how Microsoft and OpenAI are not entitled to use copyrighted newspaper content to build their new trillion-dollar enterprises, without paying for that content," according to the suit.

Yet OpenAI has long claimed that its so-called "large language models," hoover up vast amounts of data from all corners of the internet under what is known as the "fair use" doctrine.

Under that legal theory, copyrighted works can be used without permission if certain criteria are met, like if it is substantially changed, or if the new work does not compete with the original.

The "fair use" doctrine allows researchers, teachers, critics and others to rely on copyrighted works without permission and payment.

Yet legal scholars have said it is far from certain that the law is on the on the side of AI companies, and it will likely take years of court battles and a long appeals process to determine whether leading technology firms like OpenAI have violated the law or not.

Other publishers have chosen to take a more conciliatory path with the company. The Associated Press, German publisher Axel Springer, which owns Politico andBusiness Insider, and, recently, The Financial Times, have all struck licensing agreements with OpenAI to be paid for use of copyrighted material.

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Eight newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft for copyright infringement

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The New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune and others contend that the tech companies illegally copied their work without seeking permission or ever paying the publishers.

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Researchers Find Exam Answers for Half Their Modules on Chegg

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Researchers Find Exam Answers for Half Their Modules on Chegg

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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Researchers find exam answers for half their modules on Chegg

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Australian scholars say improving response times make website “an appealing tool” for cheating, but findings are disputed.

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Students and Professors Believe AI Will Aid Cheating

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Students and Professors Believe AI Will Aid Cheating

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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Students and professors expect more cheating thanks to AI

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A new survey finds students believe it’s already easier to cheat, thanks to generative artificial intelligence—and instructors think it will get worse in coming years.

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What Do We Gain and Lose When Students Use AI to Write?

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What Do We Gain and Lose When Students Use AI to Write?

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If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

If a student uses AI to write and nobody notices, does it matter?

I'll admit: the latter question is hard for me to ask, as a former journalist here at EdSurge who built a career on writing. But AI writing is proliferating across professions. Marketers use it for advertising copy; financial analysts for synthesizing information. More than 4 in 5 teachers have used ChatGPT. Even in industries with stringent standards for human originality, AI is making inroads. The winner of a prestigious Japanese literary award used ChatGPT to write a portion of her novel.

Just as the tech tools of the business world - laptops, smartphones and the internet - found their way into classrooms, so too has generative AI. And if one of the goals of school is to prepare children for life beyond, how do we get kids ready for this new world, especially while student writing proficiency remains worrisome? Last year, almost half of Texas fourth graders scored a zero on the state writing composition test.

When groundbreaking technologies enter schools, old skills and habits make way for new ones. Some we may not miss much, like cursive handwriting. Other conveniences come at a cost: Typing on keyboards has largely replaced writing by hand, even though research shows the latter is better for memory and learning (and for carpal dexterity). Reading in print improves comprehension more than digital text, even though our eyes are fixated on screens these days.

So what do we gain and lose when students use artificial intelligence to write?

Here's one very real risk: they may start relying on generative AI to the extent that it wholesale replaces their thinking.

For many people ✋ writing is the most brutal exercise in thinking. It reflects and tests our assumptions, pushing us to refine our ideas and uncover new ones. It leads us down rabbit holes that we have to crawl back from. It requires us to connect the dots and think about what makes sense or doesn't, to transition between ideas and evidence, and to consider what makes the cut and what doesn't.

When AI is used as a shortcut, we lose some of these muscles, as painful as they are to build. For developing young writers, this can be a major setback.

Yet not every part of the writing process needs to be equally stressful. For students who are writing to develop their thinking, for example, style should be less a concern than substance. Often we worry more about how we want to say something before knowing what we want to say.

At Carnegie Mellon University, a team of English professors have proposed using the concept of "restrained generative AI" to develop tools for writing instruction. This approach involves building guardrails that help students focus more on higher-order thinking and the core of their arguments, and worry less about precise sentence construction. One feature, for example, converts students' notes into rough prose without inserting ideas and opinions, such that the quality of the prose reflects the quality of the notes. It is a novel concept that has potential to help younger students if the "AI restraint" can be aligned to grade-level writing standards.

Each little metacognitive act of constructing a sentence, though, reflects valuable thinking. Knowing how to use conjunctions, for instance - the ifs, buts and therefores - is an important exercise in logical reasoning. How much should we outsource that to AI? Too much, and the writing experience may feel like a fill-in-the-blank exercise like MadLibs.

Mastering writing mechanics and crafting sound arguments takes not only practice, but also guidance. The most formative learning experiences come when teachers help students work through their knots and help them find those "aha!" moments when everything clicks. But time - or rather, the lack of it - naturally limits how much feedback they can provide, and how many cycles of writing they can go through.

Here's one way AI can assist writing instruction: Shortening the amount of time it takes for teachers to give feedback throughout the writing process - planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing - so that students no longer have to wait days or weeks before knowing whether they're on the right track. Some tools allow teachers to set a rubric that guides the grades and feedback delivered by AI. The idea is that AI can handle some basic feedback - on grammar, syntax, diction - so that teachers can focus on other important areas.

However, there are limitations: A recent study on ChatGPT found that it "can perform comparably to a human in assigning a final holistic score for a student essay, but it struggles to identify and evaluate the structural pieces of argumentative writing."

This underscores the importance of teachers in the process. While AI may be able to give good feedback based on a rubric, great feedback takes into account broader context about a student's background, knowledge and experiences - things that AI would be hard-pressed to know better than teachers.

AI poses many existential questions for education, and today it is reasonable to ask: "Was this assignment written by AI?" There are many instances of lazy copy-and-pasting, not just in homework and college admission essays, but in academic research as well. The reality at this moment is that our human AI bullshit detectors are already on full alert, with or without the help of digital AI detection tools.

But that question may soon be as anachronistic as asking whether someone used the internet for help.

"Why would a student use AI to write this?" is a better question for teachers to ask, as well as: "How did they interact with AI during the process?" Just as we want students to verify information they find on the web, they will need the skills and confidence to question, evaluate and refine what AI produces. This is the next frontier in media and digital literacy.

Teaching these skills will be an important task for teachers, and one they are well suited for. With their help, students can learn to incorporate AI in thoughtful ways that preserve human thinking and agency.

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What Do We Gain and Lose When Students Use AI to Write? - EdSurge News

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If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?If a student uses AI to write and nobody notices, does it matter?I'll admit: the ...

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Instagram Is Restricting  Teen Accounts – and Blocking Sneaky Workarounds

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Instagram Is Restricting  Teen Accounts – and Blocking Sneaky Workarounds

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Apple Watch if Becoming Doctors’ Favorite Medical Device

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Apple Watch if Becoming Doctors’ Favorite Medical Device

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TikTok Executives Know About App’s Effect on Teens, Lawsuit Documents Allege

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TikTok Executives Know About App’s Effect on Teens, Lawsuit Documents Allege

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TikTok executives know about app’s effect on teens, lawsuit documents allege : Consider This from NPR

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For the first time, internal TikTok communications have been made public that show a company unconcerned with the harms the app poses for American teenagers. This is despite its own research validating many child safety concerns. The confidential material was part of a more than two-year investigation into TikTok by 14 attorneys general that led to state officials suing the company on Tuesday. The lawsuit against the popular video sharing platform claims it was designed to keep young people hooked on the service. Documents uncovered by Kentucky Public Radio show that the company’s internal research may help support this accusation. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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Australia Is The Latest Country to Give Workers the “Right to Disconnect” After Hours

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Australia Is The Latest Country to Give Workers the “Right to Disconnect” After Hours

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Australia is the latest country to give workers the ‘right to disconnect’ after hours

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Australia is the latest country to protect workers who ignore work calls and messages after hours, under certain circumstances. The “right to disconnect” hasn’t caught on in the U.S. just yet.

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Why We Need to Talk About Teens, Social Media, and Mental Health

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Why We Need to Talk About Teens, Social Media, and Mental Health

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Rates of depression and anxiety have risen among teens over the last decade. Amid this ongoing mental health crisis, the American Psychological Association issued guidelines for parents to increase protection for teens online last year.

In this encore episode, NPR science correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff looks into the data on how that change has impacted the mental health of teenagers. In her reporting, she found that the seismic shift of smartphones and social media has re-defined how teens socialize, communicate and even sleep.

In 2009, about half of teens said they were using social media daily, reported psychologist Jean Twenge. And by 2022, 95% of teens said they used some social media, and about a third said they use it constantly.
We want to hear the science questions that keep you up at night. Send us an email at This episode was produced by Jane Greenhalgh with Liz Metzger. It was edited by Jane Greenhalgh and our managing producer, Rebecca Ramirez. Michaeleen Doucleff checked the facts. Our audio engineers were Neisha Heinis and Hans Copeland. shortwave@npr.org.

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Why we need to talk about teens, social media and mental health : Short Wave

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Rates of depression and anxiety have risen among teens over the last decade. Amid this ongoing mental health crisis, the American Psychological Association issued guidelines for parents to increase protection for teens online. In this encore episode, NPR science correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff looks into the data on how that change has impacted the mental health of teenagers.

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Beef Up Your Password Security on Three Key Accounts

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Beef Up Your Password Security on Three Key Accounts

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Amazon Wants Your Palm and TSA Wants Your Face. What Saying Yes Will Mean

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Amazon Wants Your Palm and TSA Wants Your Face. What Saying Yes Will Mean

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Those Online Accounts You No Longer Use? For Your Own Safety, Get Rid of Them

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Those Online Accounts You No Longer Use? For Your Own Safety, Get Rid of Them

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Why Everyone Needs a “Digital Death-Cleaning” Plan

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Why Everyone Needs a “Digital Death-Cleaning” Plan

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So Your Data Was Stolen in a Data Breach

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So Your Data Was Stolen in a Data Breach

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So your data was stolen in a data breach : Planet Money

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If you... exist in the world, it’s likely that you have gotten a letter or email at some point informing you that your data was stolen. This happened recently to potentially hundreds of millions of people in a hack that targeted companies like Ticketmaster, AT&T, Advance Auto Parts and others that use the data cloud company Snowflake.On today’s show, we try to figure out where that stolen data ended up, how worried we should be about it, and what we’re supposed to do when bad actors take our personal and private information. And: How our information is being bought, sold, and stolen.This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Keith Romer. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Meg Cramer. It was engineered by Ko Takasugi-Czernowin with an assist from Kwesi Lee, and fact-checked by Dania Suleman. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.