A new paper, "Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action," outlines specific steps that policymakers, educators and community leaders can take to strengthen citizens' digital and media literacy skills. There is a strong role to be played by formal education, says Renee Hobbs, professor and director of the Media Education Lab at Temple and the paper's author. Digital and media literacy education should be incorporated into teacher preparation programs in order to educate teachers on how to teach children those skills.

(There is no link to this report.)

A Philadelphia woman was recently fired from her job at a day care center. What made her termination unusual was that she notified in a text message. Is it wrong to fire someone via text message? Temple psychologist Donald Hantula noted that disputes about the inappropriate uses of new communications technologies are nothing new. "A century or so ago...using a telephone [in a business setting for] communication was seen to be very rude," he said.