Teens don’t use email much anymore, according to Stefanie Olsen, writing in CNET News.com, and even Instant Messenger is a dying tool with this age group. Instead, they use social networking tools, such as MySpace and FaceBook, plus cell phone text messaging, to communicate. When teens do use e-mail, it is to stay in touch with adults. As one teen who uses Facebook on her cell phone explains, “I need (Facebook) everywhere I go, but I log into e-mail only once a week.” Read the article here.

Duke CIT will offer events this fall on using Facebook in instructional activities. For insights on the technologies Duke students use, listen to the CIT 2007 showcase presentation on iPods and Podcasts and YouTube, Oh My! Student Perspectives on Technology Use in Coursework, Research and Community Engagement.

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Mashable.com offers a list of 13 very cool Google Map mashups, including several which could be useful in education:

WikiMapia - a wiki-like map where users can add information about a location.

Flickrvision - combines Flickr’s API with Google Maps to shows the most recently uploaded photos from around the world in real-time on a map.

HealthMap - utilizes feeds from the World Health Organization and others to provide the latest updates on diseases and outbreaks in the different regions of the world.

AP News - shows recent headlines from Associated Press on a map from where the story is datelined.

US Presidential Primaries - shows the results of polls that have been taken in each state for both parties leading up to the 2008 US Presidential Primaries.

ChicagoCrime.org - allows you to search a database of crimes reported in Chicago and see where they took place. You can filter your results by location, type of crime, district, and date, and then see details of the crime on the map.

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Google and the Keio University Library in Japan will digitize at least 120,000 public domain books so that readers around the world can view, browse, read, and download public domain materials by searching online at http://books.google.co.jp or by typing a search term in Japanese in at http://books.google.com.

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