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Safety

Minecraft & the shared, creative safety of gaming, social media

June 27, 2013 By Anne 11 Comments

Minecraft screenshot

Reporters and reviewers write about Minecraft as if it's just like any other videogame. Even this highly readable piece about its creator (Markus Persson, aka "Notch") and its parent company (Mojang) by Harry McCracken in Time magazine doesn't cover what makes it different from other games specifically for its kid (and parent) players. But he does bring out this extraordinary differentiating … [Read more...] about Minecraft & the shared, creative safety of gaming, social media

Filed Under: gaming, Parenting, Social Media, videogames Tagged With: COPPA, digital citizenship, Marianne Malmstrom, Massively Minecraft, MineCraft, Parenting, resilience, Safety, teaching, videogames, Xbox 360

So we’ve all ‘let our guard down’?

April 1, 2013 By Anne 1 Comment

It's interesting that Daily Beast writer Caitlin Dixon precedes her question "When did we let our guard down?" with the story of sleeping on strangers' couch in Italy after finding them in a couch-surfing site. Yes, she let her guard down (but the people were great hosts). What's interesting, though, is that she compared couch-surfing to connecting with people online. One could argue – and I've … [Read more...] about So we’ve all ‘let our guard down’?

Filed Under: Internet safety education, Literacy & Citizenship, Parenting, Privacy, Risk & Safety Tagged With: couch-surfing, danah boyd, David Finkelhor, Larry Rosen, Parenting, Privacy, Safety, teens, youth

TWD going the way of DUI: Research

November 13, 2012 By Anne Leave a Comment

The good news is, the vast majority of young drivers and passengers (91%) now know how dangerous it is to text while driving (TWD) – very close to the figure for driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol: 97%. We're making progress, people. The bad news – according to research my organization, ConnectSafely.org, has conducted with the support of AT&T – is, 43% of US 13-to-17-year-olds agree … [Read more...] about TWD going the way of DUI: Research

Filed Under: mobile, Research, Risk & Safety, Social Media, texting, texting while driving Tagged With: ATT, DUI, Safety, texting while driving, traffic safety, TWD

Does tracking our kids’ every move make them safer?

October 9, 2012 By Anne 7 Comments

Reflecting on a cellphone app developer's claim, I'm thinking that tracking our kids' movements, moment by moment, isn't the best way to enhance "family awareness." Those are the words of Chris Hull, CEO of the company that developed the Life360 tracking app, in an interview for Time. Is that "awareness" as in "surveillance"? Oddly, Time interpreted Hull's reference to be "family awareness" as … [Read more...] about Does tracking our kids’ every move make them safer?

Filed Under: apps, Filtering, monitoring, etc., geolocation, mobile, Parenting, Research, Risk & Safety, Social Media Tagged With: apps, cellphones, family policy, fear, life360, mmguardian, mobile phones, online safety, parental controls, Parenting, Safety, tracking

Facebook’s new Family Safety Center

April 19, 2011 By Anne 2 Comments

I serve on the site's Safety Advisory Board so of course I have a bias, but where Facebook says (at the top of its new safety center), "We believe safety is a conversation and a shared responsibility among all of us," belief and bias really aren't at issue. You can see this is pure logic right? In today's social, user-produced media environment, safety and privacy are by definition a shared … [Read more...] about Facebook’s new Family Safety Center

Filed Under: Literacy & Citizenship, Parenting, Risk & Safety Tagged With: Facebook, Family Safety Center, Guy Kawasaki, Parenting, Privacy, Safety, safety a negotiation

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Anne Collier


Bio and my...
2016 TEDx Talk on
the heart of digital citizenship

Connect with me on LinkedIn
Follow me on MASTODON
Friend me on Facebook
See me on YouTube

IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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