• Child ID theft. If your kids start getting credit card offers in the mail, it's no joke. It's quite possible their identities have been stolen. A way to find out is to check with the Social Security Administration, to see if they have earnings reports, SCnow.com in South Carolina reports. Just how can this happen? It's actually not usually an online problem. "Identity thieves can steal a child's information in a number of ways," according to SCnow.com. "Many times a parent will use his or her child's identity because of their own bad credit. But strangers can also get the information fairly easily by sifting through trash, stealing mail, or taking it from a form that's not properly protected." A whole group of kids became victims after their pediatrician's office left a patient checkin book with names and social security numbers out on the medical office counter. Check out the SCnow article to see what the Federal Trade Commission says to do if a toddler you know has an earnings report or go to OnGuardOnline.com's page on ID theft or the FTC's index to all its resources on the subject.
• Window on cyberbullying. For some valuable high school students' views on cyberbullying, see the Paly Voice, the students online newspaper of Palo Alto High School. For example, it tells of how "many students who use Facebook to bully each other do not leave negative comments directly on each other's profiles because their identities would be made public." Instead they leave them in a widgetenabled spot called "Honesty Box," where "students are not afraid to go all out, holding nothing back." Facebook reportedly maintains a neutral position on these little applications that third parties offer to its users, and some are pure entertainment, but others seem to lend themselves more to negative behavior than positive. "In addition to the Honesty Box, other applications such as 'Compare People' allow them to bully their peers." And they do, the Paly Voice says: "In Compare People, photos of two random students are presented with a question and a third peer votes on which friend fits the question more. Anyone who has the application can vote their peers superlatives like 'Most popular' and 'Hottest'."
• Boys & girls on Web 2.0. A thoughtful New York Times piece looks at the social Web's young innovators and reports that "the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls," referring to the Pew/Internet findings that they're the biggest creators of Web graphics, blogs, photos, profile pages, and sites (35% of girls 1217 have blogs vs. 20% of boys; 32% of girls have Web pages vs. 22% of boys; and 70% of girls 1517 have socialsite profiles vs. 57% of boys 1517). It's funny that the Times and (everybody else, seemingly) goes on to cite with surprise statistics about the *dearth* of girls in computer science programs as if all this creativity on their part is somehow about computers and technology! "It is possible that the girls who produce glitters today will develop an interest in the rigorous science behind computing, but some scholars are reluctant to draw that conclusion." Well, of course. Harvard Law School's Berkman Center seems to understand that creativity on the Net is no more about technology than it is offline: "The result of [its] focus groups and interviews with young people 13 to 22, suggests that girls' online practices tend to be about their desire to express themselves, particularly their originality." As for boys, here's an interesting observation: "THE one area where boys surpass girls in creating Web content is posting videos. This is not because girls are not proficient users of the technology, Professor Palfrey said. He suggested, rather, that videos are often less about personal expression and more about impressing others. It's an ideal way for members of a subculture - skateboarders, snowboarders - to demonstrate their athleticism, he said." Remember, that's a quote.
• Online ed for little tykes. PBSKids.com has always meant adfree entertainment for the littlest surfers. Now the US's Public Broadcasting Service has a new educational service for children 36: PBS Kids Play "is a subscriptionbased service that lets children play animated games with characters like Curious George and learn basic skills in reading, listening comprehension, and problem solving," CNET reports. CNET adds that parents have their own area of the service where they can see how their kids are progressing in terms of national educational standards.

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