Category: digital parenting

Posted in 21st Century life, digital life, digital parenting, parents and technology

Thanksgiving 2014, Gratitude, and Digital Life

Posted on by Marti Weston
Image made at http://www.tagxedo.com.
Image made at http://www.tagxedo.com.

We are about to celebrate Thanksgiving 2014, a time when we give thanks for family, friends, and the richness of our lives. It’s a time for gratitude when most of us take stock and think about how well we live.

As a parent, teacher, and 21st Century learning advocate with a digital parenting focus, I spend much of the year suggesting ways that families, educators, children, and certainly, my students can strategize, enrich, and improve their digitally connected lives. And, of course, we are always attempting to learn enough to avoid potential problems.

But Thanksgiving is different!

Last year at our Thanksgiving 2013 celebration my family took time to consider the many good things that have changed in our 21st Century lives since we now live with so much technology. Each of us came up with a broad range of experiences that changed our lives in positive ways, bringing extra excitement and joy to our lives: experiences for which we are most grateful. Check out my list below.                       Continue reading “Thanksgiving 2014, Gratitude, and Digital Life” →

Posted in digital devices, digital parenting, family conversations, parent education, parents and technology, setting technology limits

Many Tech Executives Are Low Tech Parents

Posted on by Marti Weston

iPad MelangeWhen a new iPhone, iPad, Android, extra cool website, or app debuts, many of us, right along with our kids, can’t wait to indulge. One only has to observe homes, schools, shopping malls, athletic events, or even carpool lines (both parents and kids) to see the extent of our devotion to digital devices — sometimes in lieu of face-to-face interaction.

So what surprised me about a New York Times article Steve Jobs Was a Low Tech Parent was that at the height of the early iPad onslaught, Steve Jobs did not give one to his kids. The September 10, 2014 article, by technology reporter Nick Bilton, points out that Jobs was not alone. Many tech executives, it turns out, are conservative about the amount of time their children have access to digital activities and gadgets. Many of these digital world leaders, Bilton writes,: “…strictly limit their children’s screen time, often banning all gadgets on school nights, and allocating ascetic time limits on weekends.”  Others, the reporter points out, don’t even let their children have social media accounts.                    Continue reading “Many Tech Executives Are Low Tech Parents” →

Posted in 21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, 21st Century teaching, apps, Back-to-school digital reading, digital devices, digital kids, digital parenting, mobile phones, parents and technology

How Quickly Do New Apps Gain Kids’ Attention?

Posted on by Marti Weston

See the larger charts below.

As we get ready to return to school for the 2014-15 academic year, my thoughts turn toward the digital life changes that I’ll observe in the lives of my 21st Century students when we come together in September.

After three months of summer activities such as volunteering or part-time jobs and the less structured time at camps and on vacations, most kids arrive at school with new digital experiences, devices, and apps — and they want to share everything. I’ve especially thought about the number of apps that seem to come out of nowhere — suddenly appearing in kids lives and on their mobile devices — and I know popular new ones will appear this fall.

Below I am sharing three slides from digital parenting presentations that I made over six months, from October to May during the 2013-14 school year.

Continue reading “How Quickly Do New Apps Gain Kids’ Attention?” →

Posted in 21st Century parenting, digital citizenship, digital devices, digital parenting, parents and technology, tweens and technology

Your 2014 Digital Parenting Resolutions?

Posted on by Marti Weston

os7iphone 2Read the excellent blog post by Sue Scheff over at A Platform for Good. In Digital Resolutions for Parents, the author reviews some of the 21st Century connected world parenting resolutions that parents will want to consider implementing as families move into 2014 digital life.

Scheff offers some good suggestions to help children and adolescents (and their parents) stay safe, learn more, and develop savvy digital street smarts.

If new gadgets and devices have arrived in your family it’s not too late to check out the holiday contract cards over at A Platform for Good. You can use the cards, take the language and organize  on your own paper, or personalize the cards themselves them a bit. These cards are a wonderful resource that can help family members get started in 2014 with clear and well-stated digital life expectations.

If you are searching for more information on digital age contracts to use with children and their digital devices, check out the  contracts and agreements page on this blog. It lists everything on the topic that Media Tech Parenting has discovered on the web and judges to be a worthwhile resource.

Posted in 21st Century parenting, 21st Century teaching, digital citizenship, digital kids, digital parenting, digital world conversations, workshops and conferences

Soundbites From Day Two of FOSI 2013 – Conference Post #3

Posted on by Marti Weston

fosi2013While I could not spend the entire day at the FOSI2013 conference, I joined the event around 1:00 P.M. after a morning at school and just in time for a terrific panel, Child Psychology and the Effects of Technology. Later I attended a session, Creating Trust on Social Networks, with panel members from the social media industry who described in some detail how vendors and social media sites strive to commit themselves to user support, troubleshooting, problem-solving, and integrity — in theory, above profit concerns.

As usual, each of the break-out periods featured two sessions — topics that I really wanted to attend but scheduled at the same time — so I had the difficult task of making choices. Because FOSI2013 provided a detailed schedule before the conference began, I arrived with a pretty good idea about which session related more to the issues that I am currently thinking about and coping with at my school. Still, making this type of choice at a conference is always challenging. I’ve tentatively arranged to get together, face-to-face, with local colleagues who also attended the conference and swap notes about the sessions that we missed.

I might mention here that during a break my edtech colleague, David, and I struck up a conversation with Patricia, a conference attendee and government official from Kenya. She had arrived just before the conference and was leaving almost immediately afterward. He asked her if she would be attending the FOSI2014 conference next year and invited her to plan a few extra days and visit his school. I  chimed in and offered an invite to mine. Then we told Patricia that our independent school technology community is close-knit, and would welcome her at their schools, too.

To round out the afternoon, conference attendees all came back together to hear a group of experts discuss and distill some of the issues — privacy, digital citizenship, parenting, social media, connected life — that FOSI featured during the two-day conference. This was one of the most engaging conference activities, I think, because of the way the panelists — a journalist, an academician, a therapist, and a legal scholar — ranged back and forth over the topics connecting events and adding their own information.

Continue reading “Soundbites From Day Two of FOSI 2013 – Conference Post #3” →

Posted in 21st Century parenting, 21st Century teaching, digital citizenship, digital kids, digital learning, digital parenting, educating digital natives, kids and privacy, parents and technology

Soundbites From Day One of FOSI 2013, Conference Post #2

Posted on by Marti Weston

fosi2013Some of these ideas come from researchers describing the results of various studies. Others come from presenters’ comments. My apologies for not connecting individuals with their comments. 

I am drawing from my 30 pages of actual handwritten notes (handwritten because the seats were not a comfortable height for me to use my iPad).

In the Digital World

  • Six billion people have access to a cell phone in today’s world — more than have access to clean toilets.
  • The enemy of empowerment is fear and lack of expertise.
  • Be the change that you want to see in the world. (a Gandhi quote)
  • Children are using the Internet at younger and younger ages.
  • Surveillance does not create safety — only the illusion of safety.
  • Think less about digital citizenship. The Internet is a huge part of life and we are citizens on and offline.
  • Digital world communication often eliminates a person’s visual and aural signals setting the scene for misunderstanding.

Teens                                             Continue reading “Soundbites From Day One of FOSI 2013, Conference Post #2” →

Posted in 21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, digital citizenship, digital kids, digital learning, digital parenting, educating digital natives, parents and technology

Observations from FOSI 2013 – Conference Post #1

Posted on by Marti Weston

fosi2013I am away from school today, attending the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) 2013 conference in Washington, DC. I plan to post several times over the course of the two days, and because I am putting connected-world sharing above almost-perfect prose, I’ll make basic edits as I write but spend more time tonight and tomorrow fine-tuning my posts.

Check out the FOSI Annual Conference Program!
Check out the FOSI Annual Conference Program!

The conference, held in the Ronald Reagan International Trade Conference, features all sorts of digital life movers and shakers who offer information and guidance to parents, children, and educators.

One always has interesting first impressions at the beginning of any conference. Is it easy to get settled? Yes. Is the wifi ready and easy for us to use? Yes, and I am using it now. Are the people friendly and helpful? A definite yes. And finally, does the conference facility have a coat check? Yes! There’s nothing worse than toting around a coat all day during a conference.  It remains to be seen if it will be easy to recharge my laptop when necessary, but I expect that will not be difficult either.

So now I get to excitedly anticipate the FOSI program. I await the panel on new research. I’m eager to hear from danah boyd (lower case intentional), especially about her upcoming book, It’s Complicated. (Editor’s Note: Even when I knew just a few of the many wonderful things about danah I was already a fan just because she attended the same university as my daughter.) Another author I’ll be interested to hear is Catherine Steiner-Adair, whose book, The Big Disconnect, is my current read and featured on the front of this blog.

Continue reading “Observations from FOSI 2013 – Conference Post #1” →