For parents - Google+ Help. Community. Talking Back to Facebook by James P. Steyer | The Book | Talking Back to Facebook. “…they were born in another time.” I was led to this interesting blog post that was asking for some thoughts based on a letter that was sent by a parent discussing “technology and childhood”. Here is the email that was shared: “I am a parent of two boys aged nine and six. One of the ongoing concerns within our family is technology and electronic devices. How do we safely allow technology to be a part of their, and our lives, and still let our children experience childhood? Does technology work in unison with childhood? Is technology so engulfed within our current society that we are required to partake whether we like it or not?
I seem to be having an increasing number of conversations with other parents about technology and its implications on our, and in particular, our childrens’ lives. Since I wrote a long comment in response, I thought that I would share my thoughts on my blog as well. Great questions here and I am going to jump in with a few thoughts.1. What are your thoughts on this topic? Connecting_Generations_Infographic.jpg (1023×1535) Parent Resources - YouTube Help.
SpyBubble 101: Your SpyBubble Cell Phone Spy Guide. NetFamilyNews. Annie Fox's recent 55-min. interview with fellow educator and author Rosalind Wiseman at FamilyConfidential.com is a must-listen for parents, educators – anyone who has anything to do with teens and digital media. It has a lot to say about working through tough situations like sexting or cyberbullying incidents with young people in a candid, respectful way and, in the process, helping them understand the rights and responsibilities of being human beings as well as technology users. It's such great stuff that I felt key points of this podcast should be searchable on the Web as text and got Annie's permission to quote and paraphrase at length (hopefully accurately!). Because it's a long podcast, I'm splitting this into two parts (which are still long – apologies, but they're important!) – this week's focus is parenting; next week's on school, adding more sources.
Moral compasses needed for navigating cyberspace Wiseman's 'SEAL Strategy' Prepping for the conversation. NetFamilyNews. In talks and sound bytes over the past year, I've been saying that - for the vast majority of online youth - digital citizenship is the new Internet safety. And indeed digital citizenship is HUGE, for the very reason that behaving aggressively online more than doubles the risk of being victimized (see "Good citizens in virtual worlds, too"). Still, that's really only the half of it. Media literacy is the other half. I haven't been saying that "digital citizenship + media literacy = online safety 2.0" because it's such a mouthful, and it's important to keep things simple and focused. But media literacy is huge too, because critical thinking about incoming ad messages, compliments, group think, etc. is protective against manipulation and harm.
Now it's time for a remix. More importantly, I think the critical skill, "Judgment" ("the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources"), needs to be redefined. Social media literacy = online safety 2.0. Blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/feature/children-and-social-media/ Texts, Snapchats, Instagram: Translating Teens’ Online Behavior How much surveillance should parents have over their teenagers’ social media lives?
Why are kids’ online roles so different from their realities? How does technology change the way teens relate to each other and to adults? Author danah boyd, who has been spending lots of quality time with teens over the past few years, attempts to demystify teens’ online actions and behaviors and provide some insight into their motivations in this excellent Science Friday interview. Continue Reading A Look Into Teenagers’ Complicated Online Lives In the world of social media research, danah boyd is a star. Continue Reading Kids’ Video Games: Source of Fun, Pain, and Profit Getting under a kid’s skin has become science. Continue Reading Reward, Educate, Occupy: Using Technology as Parenting Tool Continue Reading Teaching Respect and Responsibility — Even to Digital Natives Continue Reading What Teens Feel About Privacy and Social Media Continue Reading. Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation. Who are your kids friending on Facebook?
What are they really texting to their classmates? How much online time is too much? Too often, parents who are misinformed about the social web (willfully or otherwise) will shut their kids out of it completely, only to find they are logging in anyway. If you're not taking an active role in your child's online life, you may be missing important opportunities to ensure they are on the path toward "digital citizenship," and protected from inappropriate content and people. To help shrink the tech-culture divide between parents and their kids, we sought advice from the experts, who draw not only from their own research, but their family experiences as well. Keep reading for some valuable wisdom on raising the first fully digital generation.
Take an Active Role, and Do Your Homework For kids, social media can no longer be dismissed as a time-waster or distraction. "Parents can't just decide to keep their kids at a distance from all of this. Being Safe Online Is Being Safe In Life. When I advise parents and educators that they should just say yes, when it comes to publishing online, the conversation often defaults to concerns of student safety. I attribute this in large part to fear of the unknown from those not involved in online environments and the sensationalism of shows like Dateline’s To Catch a Predator.”
The reality is that historically children’s names and photographs have been shared for years without negative ramifications. Think coverage of youth sports programs, celebrations, valedictorians, contest winners etc. However, when it comes to publishing online often those not deeply literate in such worlds become afraid the unknown. If they did know they would discover that student work can and should be published with their full name if that is the choice, or with an alias if there is fear around using a child’s real name. The difference is that when it comes to online environments, I’ve often heard adults saying and believing they don’t belong there.
Growing Up Online | FRONTLINE. Digital Nation - Life On The Virtual Frontier | FRONTLINE. What Kind Of Cyber Guide Are You? A Quiz For Parents And Caregivers | FRONTLINE. About FRONTLINEWatch FRONTLINE OnlineScheduleSearch What Kind of Cyber Guide are You? A Quiz for Parents and Caregivers Social networking, chat rooms, online games, and instant messaging--kids are growing up online, and most parents find it challenging to manage their kids' multitasking on the Internet.
What kind of approach do you take when it comes to your kids and the Internet? Take this quiz and find out! Which of the following describes a typical day in your child's online activity? Where in your home is the computer your child uses located? Susan and Michael notice their 14-year-old daughter Marissa is spending a lot of time on MySpace. Which of the following have you spoken about with your children? Which of the following best describes how you feel about your child being online? Katrina's 12-year-old son Jared gets pretty immersed in the online role-playing game Runescape. How familiar are you with the following things online? Privacy policy . journalistic guidelines . Parents & Guardians. Teach Parents Tech. Smore's link. What does your own screen time look like as a parent? · Range of opinions represented - from occasional cell phone use to 12 hours in front of a computer every day.· Families with students from ages 4 - 14 present.· Working from home - what message does this send?
· Many maintain healthy boundaries for children but don't follow the rules when kids are asleep.· Is it appropriate to use technology for reinforcement or punishment? · Do young children differentiate between the intention of device engagement? Creative output v. consumption.· Multi-tasking with devices - growing trend in surfing the web while watching television.· Distinctions around how children can engage tech - learning games v. YouTube. What do you see as some of the benefits and drawbacks of technology for your student?
· ability to connect with others (family, pen pals, global society) How teens view 'the drama' I’ve written a lot about “the drama” at school as a context for bullying and cyberbullying, suggesting that we can help our kids build resilience and avoid trouble by helping them get a little emotional distance from it. A commentary in the New York Times by social media researchers danah boyd and Alice Marwick clarifies what teenagers themselves think of drama. First, it’s not all bad. It’s not just the social “primordial soup” that spawns bullying and cyberbullying incidents. “Drama can be fun and entertaining; it can be serious or totally ridiculous; it can be a way to get attention or feel validated,” boyd and Marwick write. [And guess what, parents. What does all this suggest to parents?
“Teenagers want to see themselves as in control of their own lives; their reputations are important. But what about intervention when a young person’s really being tormented? Related links. Next step: Crowd-source digital citizenship. I question it even as I’m preparing for talks on the subject in several countries this coming fall…. The term “digital citizenship” is heard more and more in educational and online-safety circles. The subject is now part of the International Society for Technology in Education’s national educational technology standards, and ISTE is starting a National Council for its promotion. Elements of it are being taught in at least 15,000 of the US’s some 99,000 elementary and secondary schools. I’ve written about it a lot – even called it the killer app of online safety – and co-chaired a national task force that recommended instruction in it nationwide in grades pre-K-12 as a national priority.
But there still is no real consensus on its definition, and I sense that many educators dealing with tight budgets see it as a luxury more than a necessity. No youth citizenship without youth agency Not just digital citizenship ‘Digital literacy’ doesn’t cut it Do you see how limited that is? Next step. Digital citizenship reality check: Notes from Nairobi's IGF. Asked how they’d rank “digital citizenship” on a scale of 1 to 10 – with 10 representing “very relevant and meaningful” – a youth panel from Egypt, the US, and UK ranging in age from 15 to 22 gave it a 1, two 3′s, a 5, a 6, and an 8.
This was in a workshop yesterday involving young people and adults representing the Internet industry, governments, and nonprofit youth organizations from Egypt, New Zealand, the UK, and the US at the Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. The subject we were discussing was whether digital citizenship is relevant and meaningful to youth around the world, including developing countries. The British teen who gave it a 1 said it “sounds distant and abstract,” and people shouldn’t distinguish between citizenship and digital citizenship anyway. Another UK teen said, “Maybe ‘participant’ is a better word than ‘citizen’.”
Aspects of digital citizenship Consensus a ways off Other highlights & takeaways Related links. One family’s tech policy. One last gem from the Fox-Wiseman podcast that I blogged about last week in “Clicks & cliques” and that, if it isn’t already, should be searchable on the Web as text. Toward the end of the interview, Fox asks Wiseman to share her own family technology policy (Wiseman’s kids are 6 and 8). Here it is: “Technology can be really fun to use, and it gives us incredible access to the world, but it is a privilege not a right, and because it is a privilege, you have the responsibility to use it ethically. What using technology ethically looks like to me is that you never use it to humiliate, embarrass … or misrepresent yourself or someone else, never use a password without the person’s permission, never share embarrassing information or photos of others, put someone down, or compromise yourself by sending pictures of yourself naked, half-naked or in your underwear.
Remember that it is so easy for things to get out of control. You know it, I know it. Over-Parenting by Gaia Bernstein, Zvi Triger. Gaia Bernstein Seton Hall University - School of Law Zvi H. Triger College of Management Academic Studies (COLMAS) - Striks School of LawApril 12, 2010 UC Davis Law Review; Vol. 44, No. 4, p. 1221, 2011 Abstract: Today the child is king. Many legal doctrines aim at defining the scope of parental responsibilities; yet, courts, legislatures and scholars alike have ignored this significant change in child rearing practices. This Article underscores that despite its advantages, Intensive Parenting can become over-parenting. Number of Pages in PDF File: 59 Keywords: parenting, technology, custody, discrimination, gender, culture, children, torts, class, family, motherhood Accepted Paper Series Suggested Citation Bernstein, Gaia and Triger, Zvi H., Over-Parenting (April 12, 2010).
Parenting in the digital age: Major insights. A lot of insights into digital-age parenting have been surfacing in the research this year – so much good stuff, in fact, that I’m going to crunch it way down into brief snapshots and give you the links so you can find what’s relevant to you. 1. Tech parenting Right up front in “Toward Predicting Youth Resistance to Internet Risk Prevention Strategies,” Sahara Byrne and Theodore Lee at Cornell University wrote in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media that “strategies resulting in the least disagreement from children include those that empower youth to protect themselves” and, interestingly, “legal consequences or suspension from school for people who misbehave online” (I wonder if the latter because more impersonal and palatable to teens than parental intervention).
And communication difficulties in particular predicted disagreement and noncompliance from kids. 2. 3. In “Over-Parenting,” authors Gala Bernstein and Zyl H. 4. Related links. Parents: Keep Up with Kids on Facebook. Should Parents Have the Backdoor Key to Kids’ Facebook Accounts? Culture M. Markus Concern about children’s safety and privacy online has led to a number of initiatives and programs — by schools, by private companies, and by government entities. These efforts are all aimed at protecting children and teens from what are perceived to be the big dangers on the Internet: sexual predators, advertisers, and bullies, for example, but they’re also at protecting children and teens from themselves.
A new proposed piece of legislation in California (SB242) aims to mandate new privacy policies and practices for social networking sites. Should laws mandate children’s online activities, or should parents and children work that out together? Facebook still does not allow users under 13 to register for an account – and the legislation won’t change existing age restrictions. Nonetheless the bill raises a number of interesting questions about how we think privacy and security online works — and for whom. How will these parental requests work? Related. Parenting in a Digital Age: Introduction « Parenting in a Digital Age. Parent tips, Parent advice. What Are the Benefits of Cell Phones in School? Spies Like Us. Technology with Intention. Digital Parenting. No Excuses: Parenting Isn't Hard. Why Parents Help Children Violate Facebook's 13+ Rule.
Teaching and Modeling Good Digital Citizenship. Parents: Are your online posts too revealing? Ed-Tech Notebook: Twitter Bullying Scanner Debuts - Digital Education. How Parents Normalized Teen Password Sharing.