What members and others are saying about NEA on Twitter.com (over the last two days):

DiigoRSS: NEA - The Whole World (Wide Web) is Watching http://bit.ly/fit7O (expand)

TheCatcherOnRye: http://www.nea.org/home/12784.htm common sense here people, some still don't make accounts private and post stupid things though, whyyyy

teacherkab: Reading The Whole World (Wide Web) is Watching from NEA http://www.nea.org/home/12784.htm

crossn81: I think the NEA is taking an almost ridiculous position on teachers using social media - remove profiles: http://www.nea.org/home/12784.htm

noleeps: @KatyinIndy I am a reformed liberal. Was president of teachers association and worked for NEA. I know how liberals think.

crazyday1: The NEA recommends that teachers self monitor their online presence. What you say can cost you your job inspite of 1st amendment rights.

bulletsucker: liked: The Whole World (Wide Web) is Watching http://www.nea.org/home/12784.htm

ersie: Could your Facebook postings cost you your job? http://www.nea.org/home/12784.htm

cowrancher: @newtgingrich hard work, quality education, obviously not a product of the NEA

DAAddy: American Government and Society are now reaping the reward of the death of Classical Education - No logic, principles or ethics. Thanks NEA!

juanitafields: British Teachers Plan to End National Testing: While the spineless AFT and NEA join the Business Roundtable hust.. http://tinyurl.com/dbab3u (expand)

Preparing for A New Kind of Customer Relationship in the Facebook Era (Web 2.0 Expo - Clara Shih) from Steffan Antonas on Vimeo.

Web 2.0 Expo is a global annual gathering of technical, design, marketing, and business professionals who are building the next generation web.

Web 2.0 Expo featured the most innovative and successful Internet industry figures and companies providing attendees with examples of business models, development paradigms, and design strategies to enable mainstream businesses and new arrivals to the Web 2.0 world to take advantage of this new generation of services and opportunities.

Read descriptions of sessions that I attended:

The University of Maine has approved new guidelines for tenuring and promoting academics. The new guidelines allow crediting an academic for contributing to social media.

This the right thing to do not only because it is a more realistic assessment of an academic’s worth. It’s also the right thing to do because it helps to build the value of the network. If knowledge and expertise are becoming properties of the network, it is the social responsibility of our institutions to encourage the enhancement of that network.

[Review "New Criteria for New Media"]

NEA’s Read Across America, Reading Rockets lift off with the Gateway to 21st Century Skills!

Reading Rockets and the Gateway to 21st Century Skills have come together in support of NEA’s Read Across America. Both non-profit organizations have announced a year round collaboration project to make access to Reading Rockets material easily discoverable using the Gateway’s state of the art cataloging and search technologies.

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

Does Facebook lead to lower grades? Or do college students with lower grades use Facebook more than their higher-achieving peers?

A study of 219 students at Ohio State University being presented at a conference this week doesn't answer those questions definitively. But it suggests a link between the social networking site and academic performance.

Students who said they used Facebook reported grade-point averages between 3.0 and 3.5; those who don't use it said they average 3.5 to 4.0. Also, Facebook users said they studied one to five hours a week, vs. non-users' 11 hours or more.

Ohio State doctoral student Aryn Karpinski, who conducted the research with graduate student Adam Duberstein, says the study is too narrow to conclude that Facebook and academics don't mix.

"It cannot be stated (that) Facebook use causes a student to study less" or get lower grades, she says. "I'm just saying that they're related somehow, and we need to look into it further." Of the 68% of students who said they used Facebook, 65% accessed the site daily or multiple times daily.

Karpinski says 79% of Facebook users believe it has no impact on their academics; some say it helps them form study groups.

She says faculty ought to consider harnessing it as a learning tool. Yet a preliminary peek at a second survey suggests "a lot of faculty … didn't even know what Facebook is," she says.

April statistics...

...for NEA Fan Page on Facebook:

...for NEA Read Across America Cause:

[keynote to NEA MB audience]

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Blogs—all these Web 2.0 tools connect and engage over 175 million active users each day. Are you a member? This session will look at a plethora of new, cool tools that are capturing, engaging and supporting our members as they participate in culling and adding benefit to the growing Web 2.0 membership-centric world.

[view presentation]

Staff workshop on leveraging social media tools to organize around SQ744

[Download Presentation]