By Nina Funnell Based on her many thoughtful conversations with youth and adults about sexting over several years, Australian researcher and author Nina Funnell – who I met and heard speak at an Internet safety conference in Sydney last year – offers adults the rare opportunity to step outside the box of conditioned, fearful and often legalistic thinking about technology and sexuality. Here is … [Read more...] about About our strange way of understanding teen sexting (guest post)
school policy
Leadership in bullying prevention and so much more
We need to prevent and solve bullying. No question. But we also need to encourage and empower our children with the knowledge that most kids don't bully, that bullying is not normative – that, in fact, kindness is. As Dr. Marc Brackett at Yale University's Center for Emotional Intelligence said Friday at the federal government's Bullying Prevention Summit in Washington, "Children are wired for … [Read more...] about Leadership in bullying prevention and so much more
Kindness really could be going viral! Just look…
The use of kindness as a conscious, very effective grassroots solution to bullying is picking up steam. Where youth are concerned, sometimes the kindness is purely their idea, such as the kind intervention of two high school upperclassmen that sparked Canada's Pink Shirt Day and students' anti-bullying countermeasures in Iowa in 2012. Other times the impetus comes from teachers and school … [Read more...] about Kindness really could be going viral! Just look…
From ‘Big Data’ to ‘Big Parent’: Student privacy developments
Are you part of the Big Parent response to Big Data? Great lede from Politico.com's Stephanie Simon: "You’ve heard of Big Oil and Big Tobacco. Now get ready for Big Parent." She's talking about an unpredicted mobilization in recent months that has "catapulted student privacy … to prominence in statehouses from New York to Florida to Wyoming" and "attracted powerful allies" from left (ACLU) to … [Read more...] about From ‘Big Data’ to ‘Big Parent’: Student privacy developments
Our kids’ privacy & a White House report on ‘big data’
Referring to a new report from the White House that she contributed to, social media scholar danah boyd points out how impossibly simplistic it is to view "big data" as either all good or all bad. I'm thankful for the balance it struck in its findings on big data in education between the tremendous opportunities it represents for students and educators and the risks to student privacy. It … [Read more...] about Our kids’ privacy & a White House report on ‘big data’