Using Cognates to Develop Comprehension in English Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling,

and pronunciation. For Spanish-speaking ELLs, cognates are an obvious bridge to the English language. Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation. While English may share very few cognates with a language like Chinese, 30-40% of all words in English have a related word in Spanish. For Spanish-speaking ELLs, cognates are an obvious bridge to the English language. Not surprisingly, researchers who study first and second language acquisition have found that students benefit from cognate awareness. Cognate awareness is the ability to use cognates in a primary language as a tool for understanding a second language. Children can be taught to use cognates as early as preschool. As students move up the grade levels, they can be introduced to more sophisticated cognates, and to cognates that have multiple meanings in both languages, although some of those meanings may not overlap. One example of a cognate with multiple meanings is asistir, which means to assist (same meaning) but also to attend (different meaning). Exercise: Read the article and circle all the cognates, and underline words you dont understand.

Google Is Exploring an Alternative to Cookies for Ad Tracking

Google, the biggest online advertising company, is considering a new way to help advertisers track people across the Web and consolidate its power in the industry. Google could create an anonymous identifier, tied to users of its Chrome browser on a specific device, that advertisers would use to target ads, according to a person briefed on the plan who declined to be identified because the plan is young and one of several options being considered. The identifier would replace cookies, the tiny files that are the predominant way that advertisers track users across the Web and show ads based on users online behavior, but which are widely believed to be dysfunctional. Googles idea, first reported by USA Today, comes as advertisers are beginning to panic about finding alternatives to cookies, and as other efforts to establish standards for online tracking fall apart. This week, a working group to establish a Do Not Track standard for online advertising lost an important member, the Digital Advertising Alliance. Apples Safari browser does not allow third-party cookies, and Mozilla has said Firefox will follow suit. Microsofts Internet Explorer has Do Not Track turned on by default, but advertisers are under no obligation to follow it.

Tracking people on mobile devices is a challenge for advertisers, because apps do not use cookies. The Interactive Advertising Bureau started a group last fall to explore the future of the cookie and alternatives, and many companies besides Google are coming up with options. Jordan Mitchell, co-chair of the group and a vice president at the Rubicon Project, a digital ad agency, called the current situation for advertisers unreliable and uneconomical and a lose-lose-lose situation for advertisers, consumers, publishers and platforms. Apple popularized the idea of an anonymous identifier, which is part of its iPhone software for advertising in mobile apps. On the Web, it would offer advertisers a similar benefit as cookies building a behavioral profile of people based on the sites they visit. But is easier for users to turn off with a single change in settings, or potentially to use a different ID for Web browsing they want to keep private. Google is in a particularly influential spot to make such a change. Chrome is the most-used browser, and Google earns 41 percent of digital advertising revenue, according to eMarketer, far more than any of its competitors. Though the ad identifier would be available to any ad network, advertiser or publisher that wanted to use it, it would also concentrate even more control over the digital advertising industry with Google. In a statement, Google implied that it was exploring new alternatives to cookies, but declined to discuss specific plans. We believe that technological enhancements can improve users security while ensuring the Web remains economically viable, the statement said. We and others have a number of concepts in this area, but theyre all at very early stages.

Despite Early Criticism, Apples iOS 7 Quickly Gains Traction

Consumers are downloading Apples latest mobile operating system in droves, despite some harsh criticism from designers, app developers and journalists who had tried early versions of the software. Chitika, an online advertising network that pulls data through apps that serve its ads, estimated that 18 percent of all iOS devices downloaded the new software, iOS 7, within 24 hours of its release on Wednesday. Chitika based its estimate on a sampling of millions of ad impressions in North America. The adoption rate of iOS 7 appeared to surpass that of its predecessor, iOS 6, which was downloaded on 14.8 percent of iOS devices on its first day of release, according to Chitika.

This is good news for Apple. It is beneficial for Apple, and any handset maker, to keep customers running the latest software. Older smartphones dont run the new software system as well as the latest models, and some features wont work at all. For example, iOS 7s new camera filters work with newer iPhones, but not the older iPhone 4. Running the new operating system encourages people with old iPhones to buy a new model to take advantage of the new features. If theres one thing to learn from new versions of Apples mobile software, iOS, it might be that everyday people dont care about what so-called tech influencers have to say. Many developers and designers scrutinized early versions of iOS 7 before its release, saying it was awkward to use and the design was not attractive. Similarly, before iOS 6 was released last year, journalists and app developers criticized the operating system for its spotty maps app, which replaced Googles mapping data with Apples own. Still, Apple in January said that 300 million iOS devices had upgraded to iOS 6 five months after its release. (Around that time, Apple had sold roughly 500 million iOS devices; it has now sold 700 million.) An analytics chart from Topsy showing tweets from 8:00 PM yesterday to 12:00 PM today tracking positive and negative sentiment about Apples new mobile operating system. The latest operating system has a far different design than earlier versions, but consumers appear to be reacting mostly positively to the change. Topsy, a company that does Twitter analytics, sampled seven million Twitter posts about iOS 7. About 1.2 million of the tweets were positive and 1.1 million were negative; the rest were neutral. Most of the negative tweets were from people complaining about having to wait to download the software update, Topsy said.

Facebook Removes Dating Ads Featuring Photo of Dead Girl

Facebook has apologized for dating ads that recently appeared on its service that featured a photo of a Canadian teenager, Rehtaeh Parsons, who hanged herself in April. Ms. Parsonss case has received much publicity in Canada because she had been the target of cyberbullying because of online circulation of photos taken of her after an alleged gang rape in 2011. Critics said the initial crime was poorly investigated by the police, who recently reopened the case. The Find Love in Canada ads with photos of Ms. Parsons were placed on Facebook by one of the many dating sites that barrage users of the social network. The site, ionechat.com, apparently pulled news photos of Ms. Parsons off the Web after reports of her suicide and used them without authorization in the ad. The owner of the site, which has been shut down, told The Toronto Sun that he had used the photo by mistake and wasnt

aware of the girls background. Facebook said it had blocked the company from submitting future ads. This is an extremely unfortunate example of an advertiser scraping an image from the Internet and using it in their ad campaign, Facebook said in a statement. This is a gross violation of our ad policies and we have removed the ad and permanently deleted the advertisers account. We apologize for any harm this has caused. The incident comes as the Federal Trade Commission is conducting an inquiry into Facebooks proposed changes to its privacy policies. Privacy advocates say the changes would give Facebook wider latitude to use the names and photos of teenagers in ads and also would allow the company to use photos of its users in facial recognition software that would help their friends tag them in other photos. The publication of the ads featuring Ms. Parsonss face highlights a weakness in the advertising systems of Facebook and many other Web sites. The sites run so many ads that the process of submitting and screening them is automated, allowing some objectionable ads to get through. While Facebooks computers scan for obvious violations of its advertising policy, such as ads that feature nudity or automatic weapons, they cannot easily detect more subtle issues. In this case, Facebook said, its computers would not have known why a photo of the girl was problematic. Facebook said it relied on users to report objectionable content, which is then reviewed by a team of people at the company. The exact process of reporting an objectionable ad varies by the type of ad, but generally, a user can click on the little X or arrow or Hide Story button that is at the top right corner of the ad. That should pull up a list of options for why the user wants to block or report or hide the content. In the case of Ms. Parsons, Andrew Ennals, a Canadian ad copywriter, caught the attention of Facebook on Tuesday after he posted screenshots of the objectionable ads on Twitter.