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On 2 November, Newsnight broadcast what are now known to be mistaken claims by former care home resident Steve Messham that he had been sexually abused by a prominent 1980s Conservative politician.

Following the broadcast, there was much speculation as to who that politician was. Some of this discussion was via Twitter, with individuals linking Lord McAlpine to the Newsnight report – causing his name to appear as a “trending topic”.

Media reports suggest that Lord McAlpine may be considering suing at least some of those thousands of people for libel.

The legal position of an individual who posts content online, be it on Facebook, Twitter, or on comment sections of online news pages, is clear: He or she is responsible for that content. Ignorance of the law is not a defence.

So much is written in the press about the negative use of technology (in particular social media) and young people.??Yet technology and social media has become such an integrated and important part of our lives. We see ???tweets??? on the television, read facts on Facebook and gather information on Google+.

In the past 24 months social media has toppled governments, helped us rescue flood victims and delivered us both localised and international news in almost real-time.

Social media is both powerful and purposeful yet its full potential is still to be realised in education. How can it be used to transform our classrooms in the same ways that it has transformed many other aspects of our lives?

While complaints can be heard far and wide that it’s hard to find the right IT security experts to defend the nation’s cyberspace, the real problem in hiring security professionals is the roadblocks put up by lawyers and human resources personnel and a complete lack of understanding of geek culture, says security consultant Winn Schwartau.

The internet is peppered with factually incorrect news stories.To help sort through it, Dan Schultz, amasters student at the MIT Media Lab’s Information Ecology Group,has built Truth Goggles. Theweb software runs on your browser like a bookmark, scanninginternet content and highlighting fact-based sentences. These linesare sourced from PolitiFact, a fact-checkingdatabase that evaluates public statements by US Congress members,the White House, lobbyists and political interest groups.

Twitter is too big to ignore. You see hashtags in commercials, sponsored tweets, posts, news broken on Twitter, etc. It???s quickly become an indispensable tool for teachers, admins, parents, and students too. Right now, there are still many (MANY) in education not using Twitter. They may think it???s tough to start using, difficult to monitor, and even a waste of time.

But what if they had a categorized list of the top tips to help you use Twitter? Our content partners at Online College have shared an incredibly useful set of tips that are too good to not share.

I have previously spent all of ???hmmm??? maybe 3 hours developing for Windows Phone. The result was BMI Stones and Pounds which to my surprise has had nearly 1000 downloads.

From next week I switch from ???Windows 8 Evangelist??? to ???Windows 8 and (a little) Windows Phone 8 Evangelist???. Which is awesome as Windows Phone 8 devices look amazing to me (Had a chance this week to try out Nokia, Samsung and HTC devices) and the skills I have been learning on Windows 8 should transition over nicely. However I have a lot to absorb over the upcoming weeks.

I think my path will be roughly this???

IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced Smarter Education projects with the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) and Gwinnett County Public Schools to apply predictive analytics and Web-based software technologies to help improve student performance and achievement.

All schools, from K-12 to colleges and universities, are under increased pressure to ensure that students not only graduate, but possess the workforce skills to succeed in a globally competitive world. Both CCRI and Gwinnett County are digitally transforming their learning environments to help improve student achievement.

Now in its 48th year, CCRI is the largest community college in New England, offering nearly 90 degree and certificate programs to its approximately 18,000 students. ConnectEDU is working with CCRI on their Connect to College (C2C) project, designed to centralize critical student services and offer a unique way for students to manage their academic life. By adding IBM???s predictive analytics software, they gain the ability to see data patterns to determine where intervention might be needed.

With the combined solution, CCRI will be able to both capture and convey student data, gaining real-time perspective into how a student or school is doing and where intervention is needed. They will have the tools to determine which students are at risk of not completing the steps to achieve their intended goals and implement the interventions to get them back on track.