Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Safer Internet Day: Wrong to focus on 5-to-7-year-olds?
Yet, Ian Douglas at The Telegraph is saying "Safer Internet day is pitching too young" and says parents need to be the primary audience. Absolutely, they're paramount. But I think there is no primary audience. Safety on the fixed and mobile, user-driven social Web is a multi-stakeholder proposition. Just as the only logical solution to bullying/cyberbullying (there is great overlap between the two) is a whole-school-community one, the same goes for youth safety at the societal level. Everybody's teaching and learning in this multi-directional new media environment, everybody has a say in their own, their friends', and their community's well-being, online and offline piece of the solution: user, family, school, caregivers, teachers, industry, government. And yes, Douglas is right that it's not for young children if Net-safety messaging defaults to the old predator-focused, fear-based, research-ignoring fare we've hopefully moved past. He's wrong if online/offline citizenship and mindfulness are the content of safety education. Meanwhile, two-thirds of 14,000 European children surveyed said their parents "do nothing to encourage them to be safe online," according to a new Microsoft survey cited in the Irish Times. [Here's much more Safer Internet Day coverage. See also "Online Safety 3.0: Empowering & Protecting Youth." I'll be blogging more about the school part of the equation soon.]
Labels: digital citizenship, new media literacy, Online Safety 3.0, Safer Internet Day
Friday, January 08, 2010
The decade of the social Web (fixed & mobile)
This is a scary juncture in media history, as we collectively figure out how to preserve the good and mitigate the bad things about it, but it also presents – impels, really – a tremendous opportunity for us to pool all our forms of expertise and find solutions in the collaborative way these complex problems call for. It's also calling upon us to develop unprecedented critical thinking skills, the kind that grasp the implications of behavior (ours and others') as much as content, because media are social, or behavioral, now. If we can answer that call and collaborate in a more multi-disciplinary way then ever before, civilization might actually advance because of new media.
Some people, however, seem to think this juncture is just unprecedentedly bad – especially where youth are concerned. In his long, reflective essay, Sibley cites the view of Emory University Prof. Mark Bauerlein that social networking teens "never grow up," remaining "narcissistically embedded in 'gossip and social banter' instead of attending to the knowledge they need to be mature and responsible adults." There is actually a lot of opposing evidence that social media are not just about "gossip and social banter" to youth - see this three-part interview with Stanford University cultural anthropologist Mimi Ito by author Howard Rheingold.
But if you feel youth indeed are growing up more slowly, author Po Bronson agrees. In a Newsweek blog post, he suggests, however, that the fault lies in our over-protectiveness, not in social media. He cites the view of author Joe Allen that "our urge to protect teenagers from real life – because we don’t think they’re ready yet – has tragically backfired. By insulating them from adult-like work, adult social relationships, and adult consequences, we have only delayed their development. We have made it harder for them to grow up. Maybe even made it impossible to grow up on time." Bronson's referring to Escaping the Endless Adolescence, by Drs. Joseph Allen and Claudia Worrell Allen.
Hey, you can see from my essay yesterday that I worry, too, about the impact on youth of portable, 24/7 exposure to the drama of adolescent social lives, but I think it's way too easy to blame the technology and I also worry – a lot – that all this fearing of or, at best, adjusting to, the new media environment by us adults is causing this regrettable over-protectiveness of our kids and distracting us from doing our job, parenting, which includes helping our children develop the most protective filter they'll ever have, the one that'll be with them wherever they go for the rest of their lives and improves with age: the software between their ears!
Related links
Labels: critical thinking, decade, digital citizenship, mobile Web, new media literacy, online safety, social Web
Friday, December 11, 2009
'Claiming' & social norming in social sites
Labels: critical thinking, Megan Moreno, new media literacy, social networking, social norming
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
'What's print?': Navigating the media shift
BTW, I point out a lot of stories that illustrate the giant media shift we're experiencing. I think that's important to do because we adults need to understand how our kids' media environment is very different from the one we grew up in. I feel we need to understand that so we can be patient with ourselves, understand why we're so unsettled by digital media tools such as social networking, be open to the emerging positives of social media, and see what hasn't changed. And what hasn't changed? The need for the life literacy that caring adults have always shared with youth. One word for that kind of literacy is "parenting"; some other terms for it are "wisdom" and "street smarts." There's a new inter-dependency that I think is lovely: They need our street smarts, we need their tech smarts. Working from that inter-dependency can teach all parties involved good things like self-respect, mutual respect, and collaboration.
But back to life literacy (a subset of it is the social literacy needed online as well as offline): I'm seeing others saying similar things about its vital role. At the recent Safer Internet Forum in Luxembourg, a representative from Germany's Education Ministry pointed to the need for what I'd call the 3-legged stool of the new online (and offline) safety: "technology skills, media skills, and life skills." I think the reason why Swedish psychologist Pauline Ostner said at the same Forum that "youth are looking for ways to communicate more and better with their parents and teachers about their Internet use" is because they're trying to make sense of it all – what's happening in the social drama of adolescence mirrored or even amplified online. I think if we want to parent and teach kids, we can't afford not to understand this media shift and work with our kids to figure out together what it all means and how to navigate adolescence as well as social media and technologies. But I'd love to get your thoughts on this – pls comment here or email me via anne[at]netfamilynews.org.
Labels: media shift, new media literacy, social media
Thursday, November 05, 2009
School libraries: Vital filter developers
As for the filter the library helps develop in students' heads: If properly developed, it can guide and empower them the rest of their lives. Its other pluses:
Critical thinking – about what one is posting, producing, and uploading as well as reading, consuming, and downloading – has never been more important for personal and academic success because of the flood of media flowing to and from the Internet's most active and social users, youth. But now – because media is also social, or behavioral – media literacy is also protective. If it teaches critical thinking about incoming social influencing (by friends, ex-friends, advertisers, predators – see this) and about their own behavior in social media, media literacy will go far in helping students have enriching, constructive experiences online and offline now and in the future. Critical thinking about one's behavior in and with media is protective because people who engage in aggressive behavior are more than twice as likely to be victimized in social media, researchers reported in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine in 2007.
So I hope schools are engaged in an important shift, not entirely away from tech filters, but at least toward understanding how vital librarians and other media-literacy teachers are to students' safe, constructive use of media and technology. [Besides, in many schools, tech filters are "knee-high fences" that only trip up adults at school (see this commentary in the Washington Post).] I see librarians in a key role of helping administrators, parents, and teachers of all subjects to 1) see the value and effectiveness of the cognitive filter, 2) loosen dependency on tech filtering and other tech "panaceas," and 3) become comfortable with social media. Then schools will be free to do for new media what they've done for traditional media for centuries: guide and enrich students' experience with them (see "School & social media: Uber big picture").
As Joyce Kasman Valenza and Doug Johnson recently wrote in School Library Journal, "It is the best time in history to be a librarian," but they seem to share my sense of urgency about the need for everybody, including librarians, to understand why.
[I guess I've been thinking about this so much lately because School Library Journal just published my view of "online safety 3.0" here.]
Related links
Labels: filtering, librarians, libraries, new media literacy, social media literacy
Monday, October 12, 2009
Media literacy of UK youth: Study
Also have a look at my proposed definition of "digital literacy and citizenship"; and here's The Register's coverage of the Ofcom report.
Labels: new media literacy, Ofcom, social media research
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
*Updated* dig-lit definition (already!)
Critical thinking and ethical choices
about
the content and impact
on
oneself, others, and one's community
of
what one sees, says, and produces
with
digital media, devices, and technologies.
You could also end with "in online environments," as Detective Dannahey suggested. The only reason why I changed that is because I hesitate to draw a solid line between online and offline, perpetuating that simplistic binary way we adults think. Young people make little distinction between online and offline – they just socialize, produce, participate, etc. – and citizenship and media literacy are protective and empowering in any environment. Anyway, thank you, Frank! So let's go with this one (or send more edits!). Collaboration is good.
Labels: definition of digital literacy, digital citizenship, new media literacy
A definition of digital literacy & citizenship
Critical thinking and ethical choices
about
the content and impact
on
oneself, others, and one's community
of
what one sees, says, and produces
with
media, devices, and technologies.
[If you're reading this separately, out of the context of my blog-stream, I later added the last two lines, thanks to feedback from a colleague.]
I've been thinking about this all year, seeing 1) a big overlap between new media literacy and digital citizenship (because media has a behavioral component now, and digital citizenship by definition includes media) and 2) a blend of the two as the lion's share of online safety for young people who are not so-called "at risk youth" – since the research shows that aggressive behavior online more than doubles a child's risk of being victimized. So mindful use of digital media and devices and good citizenship online are protective as well as empowering. [For background, mile markers in the thinking process were "Social media literacy" last February, "A new online safety" and "Why technopanics are bad" last April, and our ConnectSafely call to action, "Online Safety 3.0," this month.] Your feedback here, in the ConnectSafely forum, or in email (anne[at]netfamilynews.org) would be appreciated.
Labels: digital citizenship, digital literacy, new media literacy
Students' own guidelines for blogging
Labels: digital citizenship, guidelines, ISB, Kim Cofino, new media literacy, school blogs
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
President Obama to US students: Practice new-media literacy
You could say that the President of the United States is promoting new-media literacy – the kind of media literacy that employs critical thinking about what we say, upload, and produce online and with digital media as much as what we see, download, and consume. I use "new-media literacy" interchangeably with "social-media literacy" (see this post), but really we're also talking about a new kind of media literacy (unhyphenated) that employs all the old media-literacy skills while embracing new (interactive, multidirectional) media delivered on multiple devices and platforms; the old one-to-many mass media still exist, are definitely in the mix, but we are not truly media literate any more if we are mindful only of what we're consuming. Media use is behavioral now, too, right? I'm glad that smart student asked Obama "for some advice on becoming US president." Social media are a factor now, and the new media literacy is protective of reputations, prospects, friendships, and safety, as well as good for social and cognitive development.
Labels: new media literacy, President Obama, social media, US students
Friday, July 24, 2009
The age of diversification
Labels: Cronkite, Matthew Robson, new media literacy
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Massive ID theft & new media literacy ed
Labels: consumer privacy, identity theft, new media literacy, social engineering, social influencing
Monday, June 22, 2009
Cellphones in class: New study on cheating
But back to the important academics question. The other side of this needing to be addressed is what testing should look like in the digital age. As my ConnectSafely co-director Larry Magid writes in the San Jose Mercury News today, "Cheating is cheating regardless of whether you use technology or old-fashioned paper notes. But in addition to admonishing kids about why it's wrong to cheat, perhaps it's also time to rethink what it means to evaluate students in the age of the Internet and omnipresent mobile devices." Here's the San Francisco Chronicle on the Common Sense study, mentioning the organization's great new work in media literacy). [Here's my earlier post on the Nielsen teen-texting figure.]
Labels: cellphones, cheating, Common Sense Media, digital citizenship, digital ethics, mobile communications, new media literacy, plagiarism, texting
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Young practitioners of social media literacy!
Labels: Henry Jenkins, Knowclue Kidd, Marianne Malmstrom, media literacy, new media literacy, Peggy Sheehy, social media literacy, Suffern Middle School
Friday, February 27, 2009
*Social* media literacy: The new Internet safety
Now it's time for a remix. Old media literacy is about what we consume, read, or download. We still need that - more than we ever have in this fast-paced age of information overload. But on the participatory Web of social producing and creative networking we also need social media literacy. I have spent some time in and been influenced by NewMediaLiteracies.org, the work of MIT media professor Henry Jenkins, colleagues and students, building on Jenkins's foundational 2006 white paper, "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture" (see also my coverage of it in '06).
If you watch the video on NewMediaLiteracies.org's home page or look at the basic skills of new media literacy, I think you too will see that digital citizenship is there - perhaps partly under "Negotiation" ("the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms") and partly under "Collective Intelligence" ("the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal"). But maybe it should be its own skill. Doesn't it make sense to fold it in there?
More importantly, I think the critical skill, "Judgment" ("the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources"), needs to be redefined. That's the old media literacy definition. Critical thinking on the participatory Web needs to be about what we upload, post, produce, and behave like as much as what we download, read, watch, and passively consume. If social media literacy involves that kind of critical judgment, as well as digital citizenship (a first stab at a definition might be: the ability to function, act, communicate, and collaborate in community appropriately, civilly, ethically, and productively), then I propose that....
Social media literacy = online safety 2.0
Or am I being too reductionist? Do you prefer:
Digital citizenship + social media literacy = online safety 2.0?
Please weigh in, with a comment here or in the ConnectSafely forum or via email: anne(at)netfamilynews.org.
Related links
Labels: digital citizenship, digital ethics, Henry Jenkins, media literacy, new media literacy
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