Kids and Socializing Online

Social networking sites, chat rooms, virtual worlds, and blogs are how teens and tweens socialize online; it's important to help your child learn how to navigate these spaces safely. Among the pitfalls that come with online socializing are sharing too much information or posting comments, photos, or videos that can damage a reputation or hurt someone's feelings. Applying real-world judgment can help minimize those risks. Remind Kids that Online Actions Have Consequences The words kids write and the images they post have consequences offline. Some of your child's profile may be seen by a broader audience than you — or they — are comfortable with, even if privacy settings are high. Even if you delete the information from a site, you have little control over older versions that may exist on other people's computers and may circulate online. Tell Kids to Limit What They Share Tell your kids why it's important to keep some things — about themselves, family members, and friends — to themselves.

Activity Cards Click on the titles below to print age-appropriate activity cards. These activity cards are related to the online activities and easy to implement with few extra materials. Printable handouts are included. Primary (Ages 5-7) Bad Netiquette Stinks Students will learn the definition of netiquette and discuss the importance of having good manners online. Intermediate (Ages 8-10) Attitude Overdrive Students will watch the NSTeens video "Attitude Overdrive" and discuss what to do when they encounter "griefers" while playing games online.

Family Genealogy and History Internet Education Directory Netvibes Adds Slick Magazine Layout Options; Supports OpenSocial The widget is ready for its closeup. Today at the LeWeb conference in Paris, Netvibes announced a major step forward in how widgets are presented on a start page. Instead of the standard jumble of boxes filled mostly with text-only feeds, Netvibes members can now arrange the different widgets they subscribe to in different layouts that help to break up the page. And within a given widget, they can choose different viewing options for how they see each feed, including carousel view, magazine, streaming ticker, and normal text-headline views. Maybe I’m just excited about this because I’m a former magazine guy, but I always thought Netvibes and most other start pages were way too ugly. Netvibes is not alone in thinking about how to present collections of widgets in a more graphic way. To change the layout of an entire page within Netvibes, you click on the option pull-down menu arrow on each tab and pick your layout.