The link below contains “a list of free apps and websites that… really motivates and inspires my students to be actively engaged in their learning.”

http://edudemic.com/2012/11/ipads-in-the-classroom-tools/

My personal favorite is Evernote (http://evernote.com/) – a free app that allows you to take notes, save files, track web sites, collaborate and more.

http://edudemic.com/2012/09/100-ways-to-use-facebook-in-your-classroom/

http://edudemic.com/2012/04/100-ways-to-use-twitter-in-education-by-degree-of-difficulty/

The Pearson Study: http://www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com/higher-education/social-media-survey.php

Twitteracy: Tweeting as a New Literacy Practice:   http://www.kdp.org/publications/theeducationalforum/pdf/TEF764_Greenhow_Gleason%20%282%29.pdf

2012 – A Dynamic and Dangerous Year for Retirees!

I’ll be presenting on Internet Safety (Facebook) and other topics.  For those of you attending, here is the presentation called Retiree-51.

How do I remove myself from an embarassing Google search?  What is someone posts something aobut me and I don’t want others to find it?

I was a bit disturbed by me research!

How can I remove information about myself from Google’s search results?

Like all search engines, Google is a reflection of the content and information publicly available on the web. Search engines do not have the ability to remove content directly from the web, so removing search results from Google or another search engine leaves the underlying content unaffected. If you want to remove something from the web, you should contact the webmaster of the site and ask him or her to make a change. Once the content has been removed and Google’s search engine crawl has visited the page again, the information will no longer appear in Google’s search results. If you have an urgent removal request, you can also visit our help page for more information.

In other words, ask the person who posted it to take it down(Wow – why didn’t I think of that)…

Better news – also from Google @http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164734

Oh wait, same info with a twist – call the police.

CNET TV – one of my favorite sources for Tech info is CNET.  Check out this video at http://cnettv.cnet.com/remove-personal-information-from-google-search/9742-1_53-50096087.html

The news for pictures of you (images) is only a little better. 

If you’re not the webmaster:
This will prove a bit more difficult as Google doesn’t have the right to censor results based on whoever asks them to. Thankfully, we’re doubtful many of you are major celebrities who have your paparazzi photos popping up all over Google Image search results so this should be a bit easier. What you’ll need to do first is contact the webmaster. Google has provided some helpful hints as to how to go about doing that . Explain to them why you’d like the image taken down and offer a substitute one if they’re using your photo for reasonable purpose like a news article. Once they take the image down you will have to repeat the same final step as before by taking the URL of the image and pasting it in that Content Removal page.

So there is the no-so-great answer.  It seems the best offense is a good defense – try to make sure nothing bad about you gets posted in the first place.

There was a great recommendation for a site to allow safe texting to students, check out http://remind101.com/.

Check out the links in the upper-right corner for how to set Facebook privacy settings.  Thanks again – feel free to leave comments below!

As promised – here is a link to the presentation I gave. Feel free to use it anyway you want.

Don’t forget to sign up for the Member Action Center at mac.nysut.org. We need everyone pulling together.

If you like, see the links at the top of the page to follow me on twitter or Facebook. Also, links to Facebook info are in the upper right-hand corner. Anything to share ? – post a comment.

Check out http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120205,0,639053.column.

Michael Hiltzik recalls a quote: “Books will soon be obsolete in the schools…. Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years.” The kicker – it was Thomas Edison who said it in 1913 – and the technology he was speaking about was movies!

A few of Mr. Hiltzik’s nuggets of wisdom:

“The push for advanced technology in the schoolroom then and now was driven by commercial, not pedagogical, considerations.”

“It’s great to suggest that every student should be equipped with a laptop or given 24/7 access to Wi-Fi, but shouldn’t our federal bureaucrats figure out how to stem the tidal wave of layoffs in the teaching ranks and unrelenting cutbacks in school programs and maintenance budgets first? School districts can’t afford to buy enough textbooks for their pupils, but they’re supposed to equip every one of them with a $500 iPad?

He also quotes Richard Clark,  director of the Center for Cognitive Technology at USC;

“The media you use make no difference at all to learning, Not one dang bit. And the evidence has been around for more than 50 years.”

My point is simple – this is a great column – one that we should put in front of our school boards and administrators.  I’ll leave you with one more quote about technology from the column.

… it distracts from and sucks money away from the most important goal, which is maintaining good teaching practices and employing good teachers in the classroom.

I could not have said it better myself!