Friday, March 19, 2010
What 21st-century learning does/doesn't look like
Labels: 21st century learning, PLN, social media, Vicki Davis
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Potential iPad glitch for families
Labels: computer security, iPad, parenting, personal information
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Key US court decision on bullying & school
Labels: bullying, child protection law, cyberbullying, federal court, Justin Patchin, law and technology, school policy
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Fun video contest for Net users (& producers) 13+
Labels: TrendMicro, video contest, What's Your Story
Monday, March 15, 2010
Major obstacle to universal broadband & what can help
Fear tactics don't work
"Over the last decade, much of the Internet safety material – information still present on many state attorneys general web sites and in instruction material they provide – contains disinformation that creates the fear that young people are at high risk of online sexual predation," writes author Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe & Responsible Internet Use (see the paper for examples), "when the actual research and arrest data indicates the opposite. There is a tendency among law enforcement officials to think that scare tactics are effective in reducing risk behavior. Research has never found this to be so."
That last sentence is important, because Willard footnotes it and links to what the research is showing us about the fear-based approach, as well as how we can get it right and optimize kids' broadband use going forward. The University of Virginia's Social Norms Institute says, "Until recently, the predominant approach in the field of health promotion sought to motivate behavior change by highlighting risk. Sometimes called 'the scare tactic approach' or 'health terrorism,' this method essentially hopes to frighten individuals into positive change by insisting on the negative consequences of certain behaviors. As sociologist H. Wesley Perkins has pointed out, however, this kind of traditional strategy 'has not changed behavior one percent'."
In fact, the scare-tactic approach is doubly problematic: Besides the fact that it fails to change behavior, it also hinders the efforts of visionary educators (who I've talked with, met at conferences, and followed on Twitter) to capitalize on and guide students' use of new media by integrating them into all appropriate subjects, pre-K-12 (for example, a middle school teacher in New Jersey told me, "My students are as afraid of the Internet as their parents are now," and another in New York that a parent of one of her students told members of the school board that she didn't want her child using the Internet with her peers because their parents could get hold of her email address, and "one of those parents could be a predator"). [Willard points to a report released by the FCC in February, "Broadband Adoption and Use in America," showing that 24% of US broadband users and nearly half (46%) of non-broadband users "strongly agree that the Internet is too dangerous for children."]
What does work
What will help youth, 21st-century education, and universal broadband move forward? What has "revolutionized the field of health promotion," according to the UVA Institute: the social-norms approach. "Essentially, the social-norms approach uses a variety of methods to correct negative misperceptions (usually overestimations of use [of alcohol or drugs, it says, so think: overestimations of risky or cruel online behavior like "everybody hates her," "bullying is normal," "everyone shares passwords with friends," etc.]), and to identify, model, and promote the healthy, protective behaviors that are the actual norm in a given population. When properly conducted, it is an evidence-based, data-driven process, and a very cost-effective method of achieving large-scale positive results" (see this on social-norming and Net safety and this on the whole-school approach to bullying). The Institute adds that the social-norms approach has had proven results in "tobacco prevention, seat-belt use, sexual assault prevention, and academic performance."
With the help of the FCC, the FTC, the DOE, and other government departments leading this positive, research-based approach to youth online safety (Chairman Genochowski said last week this will be an interagency effort), as a society, we can lower public resistance to broadband adoption and begin to free up American education to do for children's use of new media what it has long done for their use of books: guide and enrich them (examples here and here). But not only that: School will become more relevant to our highly new-media-engaged kids, and students will become more engaged.
Related links
Labels: 21st century learning, CSRIU, FCC, Genachowski, Nancy Willard, school policy, Social Norms Institute, technopanic
Friday, March 12, 2010
FCC's positive new plan for digital literacy & Net safety
Though the plan is positive, Genachowski acknowledged children's experiences with media certainly aren't always: "Parents are asking themselves whether they should be embracing new technologies or worrying about them. The answer is, we have to do both," he said, as EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet reports.
To help parents and schools, he announced a "digital literacy corps to mobilize thousands of technically-trained youths and adults to train non-adopters," my ConnectSafely co-director Larry Magid reported in CNET; a plan to get public libraries "more broadband capacity"; "a national dialog" in the form of FCC-hosted town meetings around the country; a new section of FCC.gov for kids and parents; and an interagency working group on online safety (something I've been hoping would happen for a while), which certainly includes the Federal Trade Commission and its pioneering work on virtual worlds and free, well-written Netcetera booklet.
"Let's focus on what parents can do" in helping their kids have positive experiences with digital media, "not on what they can't," Genachowski concluded. Exactly, Mr. Chairman. Last July ConnectSafely made exactly that point in "Online Safety 3.0: Empower and Protecting Youth": "To be relevant to young people, its intended beneficiaries, Net safety needs to respect youth agency, embrace the technologies they love, use social media in the instruction process, and address the positive reasons for safe use of social technology. It’s not safety from bad outcomes but safety for positive ones."
Related links
Labels: Chairman Genachowski, FCC, FTC, online safely, universal broadband
More evidence student anti-gay bullying is rampant
Meanwhile, preliminary results of another bullying project of researchers at the University of Ottawa and McMaster University show "that bullying can produce signs of stress, cognitive deficits and mental-health problems," the Toronto Globe & Mail reports. Lead researcher Tracy Vaillancourt said her team knows brains under bullying conditions are functionally different (act differently) but doesn't yet know if there's a structural difference, and to find out they'll do brain scanning of 70 victims they've been following for five years. Vaillancourt "says she hopes her work will legitimize the plight of children who are bullied, and encourage parents, teachers and school boards to take the problem more seriously."
Labels: anti-gay bullying, cyberbullying, Iowa State, LGBT students, Robyn Cooper, Warren Blumenthal
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Net access a basic human right: Study
Labels: human rights, international policy, Internet and society, UN Child Rights Convention, United Nations
NetFamilyNews.org