TLT at Franklin & Marshall

It all started with institutionalized education. Well, really, it began with an entrepreneurial Harvard student trying to connect the world. Mark Zuckerberg and his social media successors aside, my initiation into a world of Facebook-obsessed adolescents was highly unpleasant. Despite the fact that making friends with real, live people was taxing enough for my timid freshman self, the true struggle existed on the Internet. I often think about how glad I am that I escaped.

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via Odelia Kaly: Why Im Worried About Social Media.

An experiment using Facebook and Twitter helped students connect with historical literature.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]

Tinychat, a web-based video chat service, allows its users to chat simultaneously with up to 11 of their friends (that is, 12 people can be on camera at the same time. There is no limit to how many people can see the videos and participate in the text chat). It is currently available for free on the desktop and runs in virtually any browser without the need to install an extra plugin beside Flash.

Facebook has unveiled “Groups for Schools,” a college-centric feature that is restricted to users with active .edu e-mail addresses. The feature lets college students create groups for their dorms, majors, or even parties that they’re planning.

One of the new features is file sharing for these groups, which the company says will make it even easier to share lecture notes, sports schedules, or class assignments.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]

Dean Terry has 400 friends on Facebook, but he wants some virtual enemies.

Mr. Terry, who is director of the emerging-media program at the University of Texas at Dallas, says a major flaw of the popular social network is that it’s all sunshine and no rain: The service encourages users to press the “like” button, but offers no way to signal which ideas, products, or people they disagree with. And “friend” is about the only kind of connection you can declare.

Real-world relationships are more complicated than that, so social networks should be too, the scholar argues. He’s not alone—more than three million people have voted for a “dislike” feature on an online petition on Facebook.

But Mr. Terry has decided to take action, protesting the ethos of Facebook by literally rewiring the service. Or at least, adding the ability to declare “enemies.”

via College 2.0: ‘Social-Media Blasphemy’: An Academic Adds ‘Enemy’ Feature to Facebook – College 2.0 – The Chronicle of Higher Education.