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1. Accessible Block-Based Programming for K-12 Students Who Are Blind or Low Vision

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78095-1_5  

   Das M., Marghitu D. (July 2021, Human-Computer Interaction. Access to Media, Learning and Assistive Environments. HCII 2021)

   Antona M., Stephanidis C. (Ed.)

   Block-based programming applications, such as MIT’s Scratch and Blockly Games, are commonly used to teach K-12 students to code. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many K-12 students are attending online coding camps, which teach programming using these block-based applications. However, these applications are not accessible to the Blind/Low Vision (BLV) population since they neither produce audio output nor are screen reader accessible. In this paper, we describe a solution to make block-based programming accessible to BLV students using Google’s latest Keyboard Navigation and present its evaluation with four individuals who are BLV. We distill our findings as recommendations to developers who may want to make their Block-based programming application accessible to individuals who are BLV. 

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2. Social Media, Open Science, and Data Science Are Inextricably Linked

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2017.11.015  

   Voytek, Bradley (December 2017, Neuron)
3. The More Who Die, the Less We Care: Evidence from Natural Language Analysis of Online News Articles and Social Media Posts

   https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13582  

   Bhatia, Sudeep; Walasek, Lukasz; Slovic, Paul; Kunreuther, Howard (January 2020, Risk Analysis)

   null (Ed.)

   Considerable amount of laboratory and survey‐based research finds that people show disproportional compassionate and affective response to the scope of human mortality risk. According to research on “psychic numbing,” it is often the case that the more who die, the less we care. In the present article, we examine the extent of this phenomenon in verbal behavior, using large corpora of natural language to quantify the affective reactions to loss of life. We analyze valence, arousal, and specific emotional content of over 100,000 mentions of death in news articles and social media posts, and find that language shows an increase in valence (i.e., decreased negative affect) and a decrease in arousal when describing mortality of larger numbers of people. These patterns are most clearly reflected in specific emotions of joy and (in a reverse fashion) of fear and anger. Our results showcase a novel methodology for studying affective decision making, and highlight the robustness and real‐world relevance of psychic numbing. They also offer new insights regarding the psychological underpinnings of psychic numbing, as well as possible interventions for reducing psychic numbing and overcoming social and psychological barriers to action in the face of the world's most serious threats. 

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4. Social media users produce more affect that supports cultural values, but are more influenced by affect that violates cultural values.

   https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000282  

   Hsu, Tiffany W.; Niiya, Yu; Thelwall, Mike; Ko, Michael; Knutson, Brian; Tsai, Jeanne L. (November 2021, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)
5. Middle School Students’ Social Media Use

   Martin, Florence; Wang, Chuang; Petty, Teresa; Wang, Weichao; Wilkins, Patti (January 2018, Educational technology society)

   Cyber bullying, digital identity, impact of digital footprints, and use of inappropriate social media are topics that are gaining attention in K-12 schools. As more schools and school districts are implementing 1-1 and “bring your own technology” initiatives, attention to these topics is becoming increasingly important. A total of 593 middle school students were surveyed about digital footprints and concerns about social media. The results show that 17% started using social media at age nine or younger, 40% accepted friend requests from people they do not know, and 40% reported that their parents did not monitor their social media use, which calls for the needs of cyber-security education. These middle school students reported using social media most often to connect with their friends, share pictures, and find out what others are doing. They indicated that Instagram (27%), SnapChat (25%) and YouTube (25%) were their most used social media sites. These students have concerns about social media due to inappropriate postings, getting hacked, getting their feelings hurt, lack of privacy, inappropriate pictures, bullying, negativity, and stalkers. This study informs teachers, administrators, technology facilitators and parents on social media use by students. 

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