Wednesday, April 27, 2011
TORONTO - Teachers should avoid connecting with their students on Facebook, Twitter or other social media, the Ontario College of Teachers said Monday.
Other popular online social media such as LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube and MySpace also should not be used to connect one-on-one with students, the college said.
The regulatory body issued a professional advisory Monday on the use of social media to its 230,000 members. It told them to maintain professional boundaries, something that is vital to the public trust.
Teachers are advised to decline student-?initiated “friend” requests online, and not to issue “friend” requests to students. Exchanging private texts, phone numbers, personal e?mail addresses or photos of a personal nature with students are also taboo, the guidelines said.
The teachers' college registrar Michael Salvatori said in an interview that electronic communication and social media can offer exciting teaching experiences. But there are serious risks of misunderstandings or abuse that could result in disciplinary action or even criminal charges, he said.
If a teacher and a student were exchanging text messages or messages on Facebook, it could be misconstrued, said Salvatori.
"The tone might become too friendly or not maintain those professional boundaries and it can become a slippery slope where it could be misconstrued as grooming behaviour," he said.
The advisory states that some members "have been found to have groomed a student for sexual purposes, using electronic messages to gradually win a student's confidence and establish an inappropriate relationship."
There are many other ways teachers can communicate with students and their parents, such as face-to-face interactions, email, telephone conversations or parent-teacher conferences, said Salvatori.
Teachers are also advised to notify parents or guardians before using social networks for classroom activities.
"We're not saying don't use Facebook. We think it's a terrific medium," said Salvatori, who noted many school boards have their own Facebook pages.
"That's an ideal platform where students and teachers can interact for teaching and learning purposes in a board-sanctioned environment where parents are aware and where those professional boundaries are maintained."
Annie Kidder of the parents' group People for Education said some of the advice is common sense that teachers should already know. But she added the college could have offered more guidance on how to use social media effectively in teaching.
"It is important we understand it's 2011 and we have this incredible tool at our fingertips," said Kidder.
"We have to figure out how to use it well, instead of saying 'Stay away from this, it's dangerous.'"
Students want teachers to see and understand them as human beings, she said. Research shows the teacher-student relationship is important to learning, she added.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 0
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Blekko is now including integration with Facebook Comments in its search results. Users who login with their Facebook accounts can communicate
Based on the comments we received on a recent article about the potential Facebook data could have in Google results, a lot of people don’t see any value in that. When asked about Blekko’s take on this, co-founder Mike Markson told WebProNews, “Facebook data is by no means a replacement for web data, but ignoring it is the equivalent of ignoring your friend’s opinions. We want people to be able to tap into both the power of the Web and the power of their friends’ specific knowledge.”
“The Web is increasingly a social experience and search has got to get more social too,” said CEO Rich Skrenta. “Integrating Facebook Comments brings the social graph and social commentary right to the results page. Because what your friend says about information is as important as any expert’s advice could ever be.”
Blekko began using Facebook “likes” in search results back in December (just after Bing did). Users can see when their friends have “liked” certain search results (kind of like Google’s +1 button).
The new Comments integration is about adding breaking news, opinions, insight and updates to trusted search results, according to Blekko. That and communicating directly with their friends during the search process.
As an added bonus, users can add the slashtag “/facebook” to any search query and see all results from their entire Facebook news feed.
About Chris CrumChris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237
View all posts by Chris Crum ?
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 0
Symantec has recently observed a Facebook application out to steal passwords. Accompanied by its sensational headline, "Tornado Randomly Appears During Soccer Game", the page forces the download of a script, which displays a Facebook login message. If the user is already logged into Facebook, the app will log the user out and request for a log-in.
After entering the user information and clicking on the Login button, this fake application then sends two POST requests: one to Facebook.com, and the other to the malicious server. The request sent to the malicious server will contain the user's email address and password. Even attentive users who double check the URL information bar to determine the destination of the URL, will only see "apps.facebook.com" when the login form is displayed, even though the credentials will be posted to a malicious site.
The bogus app also "likes" the link in an automatic post, which will be displayed on the user's profile, thus encouraging more users to click on the video. Symantec has also observed a similar attack hosted on the same IP address, with a different subject title: "Video: This is the best April Fools' prank ever!" This attack also employs the same technique to steal usernames and passwords from Facebook users.
This story is only available online
PRLog (Press Release) – Apr 19, 2011 – People are increasingly become aware of the reach and influence of social networks, not only in matters of social interactions but for business promotions. No matter how big or small a business is, facebook, one of the most popular social networks, is a fine tool that can be put to maximum use as a business promotion site. When you consider that the face book has 600 million registered users, you cannot but be tempted to use it for your business promotion.
So now that you are an enthusiastic store owner in facebook, you have set up the store. You have a fan page too but are not very sure about how to connect the fan page store tab. It is not that difficult to do it. Follow some simple steps as detailed here and you are sure to be there at your storefront waiting for some 600 million potential customers come your way. That is the number of the registered accounts in facebook. You can customize your store in many ways. The facebook app known as ShopTab is to be used to add the products in your online store.
First you must visit ShopTab application in the facebook and click on the button Become a Fan. The next step is to migrate to the next page. You can do it by clicking Go to Application. Like in all facebook applications, you must allow whoever cares to visit the store by granting them access to it. Click on the button that says Allow
Choose one of your email addresses and a password for shoptab for the administration panel and fill up the shoptab form. This will put you firmly in facebook. You can login and upload the products you want to sell in the facebook shop tab.
You are in business and are ready to clinch your first sale.
For more information about facebook stores please visit:- http://www.facebookstorefinder.com/
By Leena Rao
Janrain, a user management platform that enables third party sign-in with 18 different providers, including Facebook, Google (GOOG), and Twitter; is releasing its Q1 2011 report today. Janrain’s report analyzes data from networks for social login and social sharing across the 350,000 websites worldwide that use Janrain sign-in product, Engage. For the first time in a year, Facebook has surpassed Google as the consumer preference for signing into Internet sites using Janrain.
During Q1 of 2011 (January 1 through March 31), 35% of online users chose to sign-in to sites with a Facebook account compared to 27% in Q4 of 2010. And 31% of users chose their Google log-in in Q1, followed by Yahoo with 13% and Twitter with 7%.
Janrain actually analyzed sign-in data by type of site as well. For example, Facebook is the most popular sign-in choice on news media sites for the second consecutive quarter, with 34% share, up from 32% in the previous quarter. Yahoo commanded a 28% share of all social logins in the news sector. Of course, Facebook’s share could increase more with the introduction of Facebook’s new commenting system.
Facebook has also picked up momentum in the retail space, says Janrain, with a quarterly growth rate of about 5% over the past three quarters. The startup says that this increase is at the expense of Yahoo, as opposed to Google, whose share has held steady over the past four quarters. Facebook’s login share on retail sites is up 10% over the past year, and Yahoo’s login share is down 11% year-over-year.
On mobile devices, Facebook and Google lead the pack by a considerable margin. Twitter’s share (11%) is greater on mobile devices than desktop platforms. The data above examines logins in the U.S., says Janrain, and the data internationally presents different trends. For example, Windows Live is twice as popular in Europe as a sign-in choice when compared with the U.S. Hyves commands as much as 60% share of all social logins on websites in the Netherlands, and regional portals such Web.de and GMX are popular in Germany. In Southeast Asia, Yahoo (YHOO) is the popular social login choice, and Google performs well in Brazil due to the popularity of Google’s social network Orkut.
Original post
Monday, April 25, 2011
Several months ago, when the operators of the Sality P2P botnet pushed out malware that not only collected usernames and passwords and sends them to the C&C servers but also dumped Facebook, Blogger and MySpace login credentials into an encrypted file on the infected computer, Symantec researchers speculated about the purpose these files would serve. Their best guess was that these credentials will be of use to some yet unrevealed piece of malware, and the theory has proven to be correct over the weekend, when Sality - a virus whose primary reason of being is to download and execute other malware - downloaded a new piece of malware that fished out that file and the credentials in it.
Once the credentials are found, the malware contacts a C&C center located in Florida and requests an "action script" that creates a visible instance of Internet Explorer, takes it to facebook.com and logs in with the collected username and password.
Having taken over the account, it goes to a Facebook app named VIP Slots - operational for quite a few years - and grants access to it. In the end, to cover its tracks, the script closes down the browser.
According to the researchers, the VIP Slots application asks only for permission to access the user's basic information, and it actually doesn't seem to be malicious in itself. Nonetheless, they are wary of the various malicious possibilities that this action might bring about.
"The end-goal is not determined at this stage: registering the user could serve as aggressive spamming (application posts appearing on your news feed), or a way to get more users to use the app, for monetary purpose (by buying virtual credits)," say the researchers. "The application could simply be an innocent party."
But this is not the only script that was requested, and this other one would be tougher to spot since it creates an invisible instance of Internet Explorer. It uses it to go to google.com to search for ?auto insurance bids?, and after the search the browser instance gets closed. The researchers believe this script is just an experiment that shows that the Sality operators are again thinking ahead.
On the other hand, the first script could come very handy to infected users. Since Sality has ability to disable security software and does it best to hide its presence on the affected machine, a simple peek into their Facebook Apps and Websites page in the Privacy Settings is enough to reveal whether the VIP Slots app is there.
If it is - and the user hasn't authorized it himself - it could point to a Sality-infected machine.
Monday, April 25, 2011 0
