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A parent-led effort to close the digital divide

Javeria Salman

September 24, 2020 |

The Hechinger Report |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Nevada

When Clark County School District moved to an all-remote plan for school, it distributed 10,000 devices, close to 20,000 students had no way to connect their online classes. A parent, with the help of a SCSD teacher and a board of education member, created a Facebook group to help spanish-speaking families express if they needed a device for their kids and help fill those needs. The group gained traction and attention and has since received 550 device requests, fulfilling 162. The group relies on monetary and computer donations from individuals and businesses.

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‘Vigilantes' on a mission to reunite owners with their stolen bikes

Donna Ferguson

September 19, 2020 |

The Guardian |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: England, Cambridge

Facebook groups are reuniting bicycle-theft victims with their property by creating a place to report thefts and alerting others to be on the lookout for the bikes. A pandemic-inspired boom in bicycling, as a means to avoid public transportation, has fed a concurrent boom in bike thefts. Police praise the Facebook groups' public spirit and effectiveness, but warn of risks when confronting those trying to sell stolen bikes. More than 90% of bike theft reports to police hit a dead end, lowering faith in the police as a solution.

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Texas Teacher Takes Her Students On A Road Trip Through U.S. History — Remotely

Emma Talkoff, Emily Alfin Johnson

September 11, 2020 |

NPR |

Multi-Media |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States

Students taking AP U.S. History at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, may have been limited in their ability to attend in-person classes, but their teacher decided to supplement their lessons by taking on a 15-day virtual road trip across the U.S. to see the places often mentioned in their textbooks. Cathy Cluck traveled as far as the east coast to show students historic sites like Jamestown, Gettysburg, the Lincoln Memorial, and many others.

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For many Chicago communities, there is no COVID safety net. So teachers are stepping in.

Yana Kunichoff

September 08, 2020 |

Chalkbeat |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

In Chicago, teachers across the city created mutual aid groups to help students and their families pay rent, buy groceries, or cover medical bills. By using their existing networks, social media, and apps like Venmo, groups have been able to raise thousands of dollars. One mutual aid group from Roberto Clemente Community Academy in Humboldt Park raised $34,288 in about six months. “If we don’t help, who will?”

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Green teen memes: how TikTok could save the planet

Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu

August 28, 2020 |

The Guardian |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Many young TikTok users are sharing videos about environmental issues, like climate change and biodiversity, and it is leading to resource sharing, personal connections, and people reaching out to learn more about environmental topics like gardening, soil restoration, renewable energy, and environmental racism. Some believe the Covid-19 lockdown has increased engagement even further. A subculture called “grass TikTok” emerged to share information about plant species and has nearly 380 million views. The potential ban of TikTok in the US could lead to declining biodiversity engagement online.

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‘Digital Detroit' Works to Bridge Digital Divide for Small and Micro Businesses

Kristi Eaton

August 25, 2020 |

Next City |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Detroit, Michigan

The city of Detroit is offering business services to entrepreneurs who want to bring their business online in the aftermath of the pandemic. Digital Detroit is the name of the program offering content creation and website development completely free of charge for a variety of businesses. Over 100 businesses were selected for the five-week program, helping the entrepreneurs to move their services online, creating, and launching websites as well as establishing social media presence, all of which has gone a long way in increasing sales and profits.

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How Teenage Activists Are Talking to Family About Racial Injustice

Christina Morales

August 22, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Young people are using social media as an effective way to engage in conversations with their families about racism, police violence, and Black Lives Matters protests. Many share their conversations on social media and find support from other young people struggling with talking about racial justice with family members. Social media is also being used to elevate and circulate images and videos of violence, which some point to as powerful ways to transform the attitudes and beliefs. On the other hand, some young people’s posts exacerbate tensions with family members.

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'A Facebook page solved the riddle of my missing child'

Dina Aboughazala

August 16, 2020 |

BBC |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Egypt

More than 2,500 missing people have been found in Egypt because of work by the Facebook page Missing Children, which compiled a vast trove of photos and uses facial-recognition software to match faces to cases. The page collected the photo library with a campaign asking the public to photograph children begging on the streets. Using a Facebook grant, the page has expanded to a website with face-recognition tools and expanded to Romania, the first step of what it hopes is establishing a global reach.

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This AI startup is tackling the coronavirus disinformation deluge

Sirin Kale

August 14, 2020 |

Wired |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United Kingdom

Logically is a fact-checking app that combines AI technology and human research to assess and label the truthfulness of news articles. The app has about 20,000 users after a soft launch in the UK, with a full launch planned for late 2020. The AI technology, a feature that makes the app unique, tries to match news claims to other sources and then human researchers take over to make a final judgment. The app has been busy fact-checking the extensive Covid-19 related misinformation. Some aspects, like technology glitches and slow fact-checking responses from researchers, still need to be worked out.

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Challenge of archiving the #MeToo movement

Colleen Walsh

August 11, 2020 |

The Harvard Gazette |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library’s digital services team gathered and archived all the virtual material they could find related to the #MeToo movement. The social media-driven movement is now represented in the library’s online archive that contains more than 32 million tweets, 1,100 webpages, and thousands of articles. The team created a largely automated system to capture the content, including 71 hashtags, and a steering committee of historians, lawyers, and data experts helped work through the challenges of capturing a digital footprint. The data has already been examined to study aspects of the movement.

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