One of the most interesting comments made at the second-annual Virtual Worlds Conference I attended in L.A. this week was from Jon Landau, producer of Titanic and of a project-in-progress called Avatar. Landau said, "I grew up being taught to worry about 'big brother'; with the Internet we have to worry about little brother." I don't think anybody else heard that quite as acutely as an advocate of … [Read more...] about Virtual Worlds field trip
teens
Silently advertising to teens
This is advertising that in some case kids (or their parents) possibly unthinkingly pay to see. And - they're on an unlimited-text-messages - it's probably a good idea for everybody to be aware of. As the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reports in "Retailers know texting is the totally best way to reach teens," "sale alerts, fashion tips and sweepstakes giveaways" have definitely moved from email to … [Read more...] about Silently advertising to teens
P2P online-safety ed program
By "P2P," I mean by peers, for peers, and I'm referring to the logical idea of teen-communicated online safety ed, not the adult-taught kind - though it starts with young adult trainers. What's even more intelligent about the LEO Project in Syracuse, N.Y., is that it's really leadership training with online citizenship and safety folded in (safety in a holistic sense, involving critical thinking … [Read more...] about P2P online-safety ed program
Teen Second Life too safe?
I had to add this little addendum to that last item about social-networking options because you don't see comments like this in the news too often. Liz Lawley, mother of a 14-year-old and director of the social-computing lab at the Rochester Institute of Technology, told PC World she's "strongly against some of the restrictive methods used online to segregate adults from children in an attempt to … [Read more...] about Teen Second Life too safe?
The text version of hanging out
There is a place for micro-blogging (such as with Twitter), and not just for hyper-communicative youth or parents on business trips who use it to keep in constant, drive-by touch with their kids. Fascinatingly, Clive Thompson at Wired calls it "social proprioception" - the social version of the hand knowing what the foot's doing. He writes that Twitter "gives a group of people a sense of … [Read more...] about The text version of hanging out