Welcome to episode 232 (“Instagram = Teen Poison”) of the EdTech Situation Room from September 22, 2021, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed exciting features in the new iOS 15, The Wall Street Journal’s new series harshly criticizing the behavior and culture of Facebook, “The Facebook Files,” and a New York Times article explaining Facebook’s new PR effort to avoid apologies and promote positive articles about itself via the Facebook newsfeed algorithm. The toxicity of both Facebook and Instagram to teenage girls, Facebook’s claim it hasn’t known about fixable flaws in its algorithm, and a new social media law in Texas aimed and preventing censorship and de-platforming (which is likely to be struck down) were also highlighted topics in the show. An outstanding episode on “The Past and Future of Big Tech” by the No Jargon Podcast, a new lawsuit in Turkey criticizing Google for favoring its own review sites in search results, a CNET article summarizing new Surface device announcements from Microsoft were articles rounding out this week’s show, and a thought provoking article explaining why everyone should have a PERSONAL laptop to sandbox projects away from employers / enterprise organizations were articles rounding out the show. Geeks of the Week included “Affinity Suite” creative software (an alternative to Adobe’s offerings) and the U.S. Department of Education’s new “Digital Literacy Accelerator” program. Please see our shownotes for links to all these articles and resources! Our show was live streamed and archived simultaneously on YouTube Live as well as our Facebook Live page via StreamYard.com, and compressed to a smaller video version (about 100MB) on AmazonS3 using Handbrake software. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights (normally) if you can at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC. All shownotes are available on http://edtechSR.com/links. Stay savvy and safe!
Shownotes:
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- Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
- Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – wesfryer.com/after
- Poll: What’s your favorite feature of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15? (9 to 5 Mac; 22 September 2021)
- [PODCAST] Our Favorite iOS 15 Features – Focus Modes, FaceTime Links, Safari redesign, iCloud+, and more (iOS Today on TwIT, 21 Sept 2021)
- 36 of the Best New iOS 15 Features for iPhone (Lifehacker, 15 Sept 2021)
- The Facebook Files (Wall Street Journal, 17 Sept 2021) – Live Q&A Video
- No More Apologies: Inside Facebook’s Push to Defend Its Image (NY Times, 21 Sept 2021)
- Leaks just exposed how toxic Facebook and Instagram are to teen girls and, well, everyone (The Guardian; 18 September 2021)
- Facebook VP disputes report claiming the platform knows about multiple flaws it doesn’t fix (The Verge; 18 September 2021)
- Texas sued over terrible social media law (The Verge; 22 September 2021)
- [PODCAST] “The Past and Future of Big Tech” by Scholars Strategy Network (@NoJargonPodcast)
- Google is getting caught in the antitrust net (ArsTechnica, 18 Sept 2021)
- Microsoft Surface event: Surface Pro 8, Surface Laptop Studio and more announced today (cNet; 22 September 2021)
- Why you need a personal laptop (The Verge; 18 September 2021)
- Affinity Suite software
- Digital Literacy Accelerator (US Dept of Education)
