James Lipton’s Advice: Give It a Ponder

James Lipton urges teens to “Give it a ponder” before sending questionable text messages in this series of videos, available at YouTube.

If you love texting, here are some books you might <3

• TTYL by Lauren Myracle
• TTFN by Lauren Myracle
• l8r, g8r by Lauren Myracle
• The Rules to be Cool: Etiquette and Netiquette by Karla Dougherty
• U CN SPL BTR: Spelling Tips for Life Beyond Texting by Laurie E. Rozakis

And for those of you who just can’t get enough of James Lipton, he has written a book as well: Inside Inside.

Why Surf When You Can Stumble?

If there is one truth that everyone can be positively certain about, it’s that there is a ton of stuff on the internet. According to the official Google blog from 2008 there are over 1 trillion websites (that’s a 1 followed by 12 zeroes, or 1,000,000,000,000), and that was almost a year ago! With all that clutter it is a wonder people can find anything, let alone viral (by which we mean sites that get known through word of mouth) crazes like the dramatic chipmunk or http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Google attempts to remedy this with lots of techno-crazy algorithms to help identify and slant our searches to display results that we would likely want.  This is great if you’re looking for something specific.

But what happens when you’re looking just to look? All of our search engines are straight-as-an-arrow search-to-results mentality. But what happens when you just want to wander, or stumble? Enter the program “StumbleUpon” (or Stumble).

With just a few quick clicks you can add StumbleUpon to your Firefox browser or access it through any internet.

By selecting a few topics, such as “humor” or “online games” and then pressing the button marked “stumble,” Stumbleupon reaches into an archive of websites tagged by other users and “stumbles” you to random websites about your topic.

But beware, this program is super addicting!

With the promise of so many sites that you’ve never seen before, you’ll be clicking away for hours finding funny videos, and web based games, and lots of other random websites, stumbling your way around the World Wide Web.

If you check this out, let us know what fun websites you find!

Posted by NathanielG

Have you tried Cramster?

If you are heading off to college this fall, Mashable has compiled the 10 must-try social media sites for you. The list includes sites that help you find rides, study help, even a site that pays you to get good grades!

Check out the top 10
Cramster    InternshipRatings.com    Zimride    Box.net   Twitter
Remember the Milk    Gradefund    Evernote    Zumeo   CampusBooks

Help Us Out & Enter to Win!

We have an online survey up to learn how we can improve our online services, and if you take it you can enter a drawing to win a $25 prize!  We want to hear from teens, too.  So make your voice heard, take our survey and good luck in the drawing.

R U Really Reading?

The New York Times has an interesting article up about the growing percentage of teens who do most of their reading while surfing the Web. What do you think? Does online reading – of profiles, fanfiction, blogs, etc. – have the same value as reading books (or newspapers, or magazines)? Do you think you read more or less, due to the Internet? Has widespread lack of standards online affected the way you write or spell – or your reading skills? Check out the article and join the debate. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

P.S. If you ARE doing a lot of reading on computers or digital devices, don’t forget you can use your CADL card & account to access lots of great eMedia, including books and videos!