Digital Resources

Most New Year’s resolutions focus on building better habits for fitness, career success, and even love. But what about better Internet practices? One thing you might try is the Keepsafe Browser. It allows you to browse the Internet without keeping record of your activity—a privacy feature that is attractive to many. Keepsafe’s private browser uses military-grade encryption to protect your web searches. To start, set a PIN or Face ID; the app cannot be accessed without that code. Browse in private mode, or switch into incognito mode’s secret browsers, which erase all of your browsing history after use. Not sold yet? Turn on Keepsafe’s tracker blockers to stop advertisers and social networks from collecting your data or browsing activity.

Have a kid who loves science, coding or math, but thinks that literature is a waste of time? Researcher Shuchi Grover writes in EdSurge that applying computational thinking to analyze novels, history and society can give students new insights while also helping them learn about data analysis and coding. In his commentary, Grover describes how the method has been used to examine Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and the "Harry Potter" book series, and provides examples of the kinds of diagrams used in the analysis. It seems literature analysis is all a matter of perspective.

How can you use technology to coordinate meetings of friends and family this holiday season (and all year long) when people with widely varying levels of digital literacy all rely on the same tech to get together? Brian Chen has some ideas for gathering a group, group chatting options, and even how to share pictures after your gatherings, in an article entitled Make Your Friends and Family Less Irksome This Holiday Season.

Schools are increasingly focused on ensuring that educational technologies are available to all students, including those with disabilities. To help with this mission, schools and other organizations are inviting software engineers to visit their classrooms to see first hand how the programs are used and how they can be improved to ensure accessibility. For example, they may discover that programs full of unlabeled pictures are totally useless to blind users who have no idea they’re there. It may sound like common sense, but often that is the missing link in the creation of affordable and effective educational software that is useful to all students.

The Associated Press recently reported the launch of the Amazon Future Engineer Program, started by Amazon to expand access to science, technology, engineering and math lessons for students from low-income and underrepresented communities. The program will invest in summer camps, online courses, AP computer science classes and college scholarships, with the larger goal of teaching coding to about 10 million students per year. Schools, teachers and parents will be able to apply through AmazonFutureEngineer.com.

Facebook has created a dataset called VideoStory designed to train systems to learn how to automatically describe what happens in videos that have been posted to the social networking website, according to an article from VentureBeat . Researchers say this development can aid in allowing people with disabilities or poor internet connections to engage with videos on the platform. While not a perfect system, this development is especially important as videos and other visual media become more and more dominant on the Internet.

Researchers at the University of California at Irvine have found that some mobile apps claiming to help young children learn may not be designed to teach them in the ways they need, according to a study that reviewed 171 math and literacy apps. Josh Golin, executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, says many apps are marketed as educational even though their claims lack evidence. This is a reminder to research apps before downloading or purchasing for your young kids.

While 64% of teachers say schools should emphasize teaching technology, only 32% say students are actively using technology to create things or perform data analysis, according to a survey of 2000 K-12 teachers from PwC and the Business-Higher Education Forum, eSchool News reports. Student access to technology is one key bottleneck, and about half of teachers note that their students lack either a device or internet access at home.

There is more to technology than playing games and entertaining, and sometimes parents and teachers need to be reminded of the power it gives kids to look at the world in different ways. A recent opinion piece on PBS News Hour discussed how technology can promote empathy and focus on social impact, even helping students to come up with solutions to real world problems.  Interested in more? PBS ‘s lessons on inventions that will change the world teaches students how to turn an idea into reality through the steps of the invention process and how to pitch their invention to key stakeholders, even giving instructions on how to apply for a U.S. patent or enter contests such as the Congressional App Challenge.

The proliferation of Social Media in society today has led many of us, including our children, to feel some form of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) when scrolling through the daily posts of our online friends. Experts looking into the psychology behind FOMO say that the fear of missing out comes in several forms, including “Victim FOMO” and “Rescuer FOMO”. Those who identify as FOMO Victims believe that they are only worthy when they are included. When they aren’t included or don’t know what’s going on, they assume it’s because nobody likes them or somebody is mad at them. Rescuers, on the other hand, need to feel smart and competent to boost their ego. They look for victims to save by giving advice and swooping in with solutions (although often walking the line of coming across as condescending). Take a look at the article What Does Your FOMO look like? to learn more.