In preparation for a new year, some thoughts on the promise and protective properties of compassion and resilience for our children (and all of us)... In the US and probably many other countries, the Internet safety discussion has focused largely on external safeguards: filtering, monitoring and other parental control tools, household and school rules, state and federal laws. Those can be … [Read more...] about Balancing external with internal Internet safety ‘tools’
Archives for December 2013
‘Fabulousness’ & self-presentation in social media
Here's a conversation about social media that would be good to have with our kids. You could headline it "Instagram envy"; the New York Times dramatically headlined it "The Agony of Instagram" (oh, brother). That the article appeared in this week's Sunday Styles section I guess confirms that it's fashionable, at least for newspapers, to be dramatic about social media. "For many urban creative … [Read more...] about ‘Fabulousness’ & self-presentation in social media
Giving students ‘skin in the game’ – another anti-distraction tool [sidebar]
Chris Lehmann, founding principal at Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy, really sums it up: giving students "skin in the game," as he put it to Education Week. That means, as the educators I mention in the main article show, using education technology not as another platform or delivery tool for traditional tutorial-style teaching but for the kind of "inquiry-driven, project-based" learning … [Read more...] about Giving students ‘skin in the game’ – another anti-distraction tool [sidebar]
Dealing with distraction with the HELP of digital environments
Learning how to be present, attend to others, know what's important in a given moment and stay focused on it has always been a vital part of growing up. "The ability to focus is a secret element to success that often gets ignored," according to an article in Mind/Shift that cites the work of psychologist Daniel Goleman, an author of a book about this. Because this piece about distraction leads … [Read more...] about Dealing with distraction with the HELP of digital environments
‘Bullying Experiment’ video: What’s wrong with this picture?
You may have seen "The Bullying Experiment" video that has gone viral (as of this writing, 3.1 million views on YouTube). Two actors stage a bullying incident (the bigger one threatening and pushing around the other) a bunch of times in various locations on a university campus. The "experiment" is apparently about seeing whether unsuspecting observers step in and try to stop the "bullying," and to … [Read more...] about ‘Bullying Experiment’ video: What’s wrong with this picture?