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August 6, 2015

“Like” Me And My Kids on Facebook

Parents Magazine has an important article both in their August print edition and online entitled Parenting in a Fakebook World: How Social Media Is Affecting Your Parenting. The article begins by sharing a story of parents oversharing (hint, involves potty training) on Facebook. The article then shares about a Parents Survey of more than 2,000 respondents: “79 percent said other parents overshare on social media — yet only 32 percent of us think we overshare ourselves. Hmm.”

The article asks, how might this parenting-in-the-age-of-social-media effect children?

“Kids pick up on what their parents like, and Like, from a tender age. “Kids know, ‘When I do something my mom likes or finds funny, she puts it on Instagram,’ ” says Judith Donath, author of the book The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online.”

And since kids understand the fame culture, it’s logical they’d want fame for themselves right?

In one survey of kids ages 9 to 13 at UCLA Digital Media Center, kids who already had their own social-media accounts — and 26 percent under 13 had a YouTube account — craved fame more than those who didn’t.

But not all kids are the same:

“Our children have very different ideas of privacy,” says Patrick Riccards, a father of two in Princeton, New Jersey. “Our son who’s 9 cringes when he learns that we’ve put a picture of him on Facebook or that his aunt posted a baby picture of him on his birthday. He wants a life off the grid — other than the life he’s building for himself on Minecraft.” Riccards says his daughter, 7, is completely different: “She is aching to get on social media. I’ll take a picture or I’ll laugh at something she says, and she immediately asks, ‘Are you going to put that on Facebook?’. Then she asks what people say about her in the comments.”

Here’s the link to the whole article. Also, Patrick Riccards has an educational blog that is worth following: here’s the link.

One takeaway from the study is to talk with your kids about what they want you to share and keep the dialogue going . The second takeaway is to trust other parents, just because they parent differently than you do doesn’t mean the world is about to end. #TrustParents

May 29, 2015

Parental Engagement Writing Series

A little while back completed a new series of blog posts on Parental Engagement and reading. You can view the entire series over at the Demme Learning Blog.

Here are some snippets from each of the four posts:

Part 1 – What, Not Where

We need to teach our children the ‘universals’ of writing, principles that transcend the limitations and structures of each medium. If we teach our kids how to write clearly and concisely, they can successfully learn to write in any medium. In fact, the greatest thing we could ever do is teach our kids that writing is valuable and a skill worth developing. If we do that, our kids will be more likely to grow in their writing ability.

We as parents need to encourage our children to write in whatever medium they naturally gravitate towards. Once they have developed a love of writing, we can challenge them to experiment in different mediums and genres.

Part 2 – Writing to Reflect

Besides the benefits of keeping an individual journal and encouraging our kids to do the same, keeping a family journal is also a great way to preserve memories and reflect on experiences together as a family. A family journal can be as simple as recording birthdays and noting important activities (such as a family vacation to Disneyland) or as detailed as writing about every single day. Family journals can also provide a written records for future generations to learn from and enjoy. We have a tradition in my family which we call a “thanks book.” Our goal is to look back at a previous week or month and record things that we are thankful for. My parents started this tradition, and it is still going a generation later.

Part 3 – Do Your Kids See You Write?

Simply resolving to write or to just write when you think about it is not enough. We need to actively work to fit writing into our busy schedules — and the best way to do that is to develop a routine. Of course, creating a routine requires experimenting to see what will work best for you: maybe writing in the mornings as everyone is getting ready to face the day won’t work for you and your family — perhaps writing in the evenings after supper might work better. The important thing is to develop a routine … and then see how it works. Success isn’t the activity, it is the communication of value.

Part 4 – Research Says Writing Is Important

Writing is both a ‘marker’ of high-skill, high-wage, professional work and a ‘gatekeeper’ . . . People unable to express themselves clearly in writing limit their opportunities for professional, salaried employment.

Writing also has health benefits. In the world of counseling, a newer field has emerged called “writing therapy”. Research has found that expressive writing, such as writing to reflect in a journal, has therapeutic value and can help us cope with emotional trauma or even just the normal upheavals and stressors of life.

January 23, 2015

Parental Engagement Reading Series

I recently completed a new series of blog posts on Parental Engagement and reading. You can view the entire series over at the Demme Learning Blog.

Watch the video overview

Part 1 – Books and Academic Achievement

If your children don’t see you valuing books, they won’t learn that books are valuable. If your children don’t see you reading, they’ll assume that reading is not important. Buying lots of books – and taking the time to read them – is an incredibly important way to invest in your child’s education. The bottom line …. books matter.

Part 2 – Why We Need to Read Together: The Magic of Reading Aloud

Reading aloud is about communal relationship, bonding, and expression of love. Read to your children, let them read to you, and have your children read to each other. Remember, years and years from now, your children may forget the specific plot details of the books you read to them — but they’ll never forget that you read to them.

Part 3 – Facebook: The New Reader’s Digest

Facebook is the new Reader’s Digest. Consider how most of engage with our Facebook feed; we enjoy seeing pictures, reading little snippets that make us laugh, and finding practical advice for everyday life. We want to be entertained and also informed and we want it to be in bite-size chunks rather than being hit with a wall of text.

Part 4 – Fiction and Training the Imagination

Introduce fiction early and often and talk with your children about which stories they are drawn to and which stories are their favorites. Go to the library together and discover new books and share your favorite novels with them. Fiction is a great way to train an imagination and a robust imagination is a great skill to have whether you are a scientist or an artist.

January 1, 2010

Tech Predictions for 2010

Continuing my yearly prognostications for the coming year.

Link to my top two websites in 2007

My 2008 favorite websites and predictions for 2009

Favorite websites of 2009

These three sites have continued to change and add new and cool things. People keep waiting for the next shiny toy but there really haven’t been that many lately. I added YouTube to the list this year because they are doing some cool things and Netflix/Hulu because they sound the sweet bell of liberty from cable television.

In 2010 it will be: Local Content, HD video (again) and Facebook (again).

The reason this years prediction is similar to last is because the economy took a nosedive and IMHO there weren’t as many innovations as companies hunkered down, improved their services and hoped for better times ahead.

Think back to the old days of the internet when blinky text and midi files playing music wasn’t annoying, rather it was considered to be edgy and cool. Think back to the first big name companies to start putting their web URL in advertising. I remember the first time I saw Cheerios.com during breakfast. That afternoon I visited the site and it wasn’t that great so I left and went to one of those blinky text sites.

It is the nature of people to crave information but once they can’t get their minds around it they move on to a smaller subset of information.

In the old days of the internet there weren’t a lot of websites so it didn’t matter if the site was crappy. Now there is an infinite amount and if it’s crappy you just move on to a less crappy site. The same will happen with video, video online is going nuts but with the glut of video people will start only watching higher quality video and the only way to automatically separate out poor quality video is by size. The content will still wildly vary but the HD video will be on the top of the pile.

The same goes for websites in general, local information and local websites are much more important than other websites. This is not because the content is better, it is because it’s an easy way for people to think. Also with the deluge of GPS enabled devices you will start seeing people really trying to tie GPS into their websites, webapps, iphone apps but it really won’t catch on for a few more years. The reason it won’t take off is most people over the age of 25 will be afraid and raise “privacy concerns”. But once the next generation (which doesn’t have any privacy concerns) comes along GPS will be in everything.

Smart websites realize this so as they grow they increase the number of subsets to their information.

Facebook in continually adding ways to prioritize and segment the information you see when you log in, friend lists are merely a way for your mind to not get completely overwhelmed every time you login. They also do this with the applications.

Twitter is doing the same thing with lists but it’s only a small way of dealing with the information overload and facebook will beat twitter in the end.

As more and more people jump into the pool you have to find a way to put blinders on them so they don’t leave.

Because of this phenomenon I believe the trends in 2010 will be Local Content, HD Video and Facebook.

Thoughts?

October 12, 2009

Is E-mail Social Networking?

Here is a little debate that took place on twitter between Inkling Media, Ben Craddock, Steve O’Donnell and myself. For those of you who don’t use twitter the @ sign followed by the persons name is a reply to them. I’ve attempted to show this in reverse reverse chronological order so it makes sense.

It all began with this tweet…

Inkling Media

RT @andreacecil: Just blogged: “Is e-mail dead?” – http://ping.fm/v0QBY

ethanD_local

@Inkling_Media No email is not dead and still has many years of vibrant life. It’s still the largest social network.

[Read more…]

Parental Engagement Writing Series

Parental Engagement Reading Series

Tech Predictions for 2010

Favorite websites of 2009

In 2010 it will be: Local Content, HD video (again) and Facebook (again).

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