XplanaZine

Here’s our take on news that matters for Thursday, February 23. Today’s theme is interesting evolutions , and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.

• Gaming — Evidently, nationality can kill in some online role-playing games.
  South Korean players in certain online games are reportedly waiting for
  Chinese gamers to log on, and then executing their characters,
  according to a report in the Financial Times.

• Blogging, Podcasting, and Vodcasting — PRWeb adds podcasting to its suite of marketing services. A new academic study reports that teen bloggers are openly exposed to cyberstalking.
  In “Teen Blogs Exposed: The Private Lives of Teens Made Public,” Northwestern University Professor David Huffaker finds that half of all teenage bloggers link to other bloggers, and often include a “friends list.” Sixty-seven percent of teen bloggers provide a comment section in order to get feedback from readers of their blogs.

• Handhelds – It’s interesting to note that around 16% of U.S. cell phone customers actually have two cell phones — one for work and one for personal use.
• Social Networks – Here’s an interesting note about the Eurekster search engine that
  that links search algorithms to social networks and communities of interest .

Now, here’s a recap of our favorite posts from the edublogging community from the past 48 hours.

• From Brian Lamb : Post on Deborah Boyd’s research on MySpace.
• From Alan Levine : Post describing the new podcasting tools at Odeo and a reminder that they are free.
• From Stephen Downes : Post on open source and trading standards.
• From Clarence Fisher : Post on social literacies.