What struck me about danah boyd's post about the helicopter-parenting of social media users was that the banning of Facebook forces young people "to choose between social status and parental obedience." Though I wouldn't put it exactly that way, my own parenting experience tells me she's right. My 18-year-old and 13-year-old both use Facebook, although (and quite naturally) differently, because … [Read more...] about Parenting & overparenting in the digital age
media literacy
Today’s ‘low barrier to participation”
Those are media professor Henry Jenkins's words in a talk he gave to USC students' parents this fall about "raising the digital generation." It's good to be reminded that Facebook, MySpace, (or Hyves, studiVZ, or Tuenti in Europe, for example) are not the all of social media for youth – that today's highly interactive, global digital media lower the barrier of participation in all sorts of … [Read more...] about Today’s ‘low barrier to participation”
Learning by doing: Safe social media for grade school
Citizenship – both digital and the traditional kind – is a verb. It takes practice. So, as you may have heard us ConnectSafely.org folk say, social media need to be in the classroom so students can practice digital citizenship just as for generations they (hopefully still) have opportunities to practice citizenship at school. So I'm thrilled to tell you about a free package of safe social network … [Read more...] about Learning by doing: Safe social media for grade school
Teachers, ‘digital natives’ need you!
"To all those teachers worried about being made obsolete by digital natives, rest easy. You have a LOT to teach them," blogs computing education professor Mark Guzdial at Georgia Institute of Technology. Hear, hear! He's picking up on New York Times coverage of a new study out of Northwestern University finding that "digital natives" are so not digital media literate. Not too surprisingly to many … [Read more...] about Teachers, ‘digital natives’ need you!
‘Cognitive surplus’ calls for more media-literacy
The information (and production) overload of the digital era creates more of everything: both high- and low-quality content coming from everybody, amateur to professional. To quote the quoter (policy pundit Adam Thierer reviewing tech pundit Clay Shirky's book Cognitive Surplus), "Shirky argues (p. 47), 'The low-quality material that comes with increased freedom accompanies the experimentation … [Read more...] about ‘Cognitive surplus’ calls for more media-literacy