parents and technology – Page 8 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century life, cell phones, digital devices, digital kids, digital parenting, kids and privacy, parents and technology

Great Tutorial for Parents Setting Up Kids’ iPhones

Posted on July 26, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Are you planning to purchase a new iPhone for a digital kid your family?

If so, check out a recently published article, How to Secure Your Kid’s iPhone, aimed at parents who want to administer and set up controls on the iPhones that their 21st Century children will be using. The piece in PC Magazine is chock full of suggestions, covering topics such as setting up restrictions, making family sharing groups, choosing passwords, preserving privacy, choosing a browser, turning various phone features on (and off) and much, much more.

Written by Eric Griffith, the July 2017 article, which includes plenty of links to other information, is a must-read for any parents who purchase or plans to purchase a new iPhone to give to a young family member.

And after setting up your child’s iPhone, don’t forget that your work is just beginning. c Become a mentor for your child and strike up regular conversations about civility, digital wellness and citizenship.

21st Century life, digital citizenship, digital kids, digital life, family life, monitoring kids online, parent child conversations, parents and technology

Can You & Your Kids Balance Life With So Much Social Media & Tech?

Posted on July 19, 2017March 13, 2019 by Marti Weston

Take a few minutes to read Five Ways Parents Can Help Kids Balance Social Media With the Real World, appearing in the July 11, 2017 Washington Post.

Written by Adrienne Wichard-Edds, the Post article offers common-sense suggestion that parents can use to establish a sense of balance between digital endeavors and the rest of a family’s activities. Most of the ideas come from Ana Homayoun’s, Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World. Continue reading “Can You & Your Kids Balance Life With So Much Social Media & Tech?” →

21st Century parenting, collaboration, device-free times, digital health and wellness, digital kids, digital parenting, digital wellness, parents and technology, tech free time

Collaborative Family Digital Activities For Summer 2017

Posted on July 10, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Summer 2017 is here, and as we enjoy family fun, outdoor activities, trips to museums and historical sites, vacations, and all sorts of camps and special programs, it’s also important to discover activities that will help 21st Century children use screen time creatively and wisely.

So with less frenetic schedules and no school, use the summer months to collaborate — that’s parents and kids doing things together. Adults can learn more about the digital whirl that’s such a huge part of young people’s 21st Century lives, and kids can engage in meaningful, creative, and interesting projects — and even have fun working with their parents. The pay-off? Everyone will figure out more about digital life and add variety to the types of digital activities that they typically do.

Below are 12 family digital project summer suggestions — all work best if people work together — to consider for summer 2017.

Twelve Summer Digital Projects for Families Continue reading “Collaborative Family Digital Activities For Summer 2017” →

connected world problems, digital literacy, evaluating news, fake news, media literacy, parents and technology

Distinguish True vs. Fake News With Factitious Quiz

Posted on June 20, 2017April 19, 2019 by Marti Weston

I am having great fun with Factitious, a quiz that tests my ability to identify real news (as well as the fake stuff). It’s a resource that can help middle and high school kids fine-tune media their literacy skills, guiding them to figure out the truthfulness (or lack of truthfulness) of a news story. Oh, and maybe it can help adults, too.

Developed collaboratively by JoLT and the AU Game Lab, two organizations at the American University in Washington, DC, the quiz highlights news stories that have appeared in print and asks players to read and evaluate them. At the bottom of each story is a button to click to identify the source of the story. With these two bits of information, players decide whether the news story is true or false. The game indicates whether an answer is correct or incorrect, and then provides a description of the news source, explaining whether it’s known for false or reliable information. Continue reading “Distinguish True vs. Fake News With Factitious Quiz” →

21st Century life, online data collecting, parents and technology, personal data, privacy, tips and tricks

My Need For Google Decreases Each Time My Privacy Feels Threatened

Posted on May 25, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

I’ve written before about the growing loss of privacy in our 21st Century lives.

Just about everything we do these days creates data that can be collected by someone. Found on Pixabay.

Now, after reading the Washington Post article Google Now Knows When Its Users Go to the Store to Buy Stuff, I am even more concerned about privacy. Fellow blog readers, you should be too.

In essence, Google is now using credit card data, to combine with the data it has already collected about us, to learn more about our purchases — those made online and those we purchase without any online connection. The goal, according to Washington Post reporters Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Timberg, is to discover whether Google ’s searches and its advertisements have helped people decide what to buy — even when a purchase isn’t made online.

The company continues to collect data and learn more and more about people of all ages. That’s creepy. It feels even more creepy when I consider how we use Gmail in my family to share calendars and when I look at the Google Dashboard that keeps track of and shares with me some of the data Google has collected about us.

Most Interesting Quote From the Article Continue reading “My Need For Google Decreases Each Time My Privacy Feels Threatened” →

21st Century life, digital change, digital life, digital world challenges, parents and technology, tech ethics, values in digital life

Are You Sometimes “Botified” When You Communicate Online?

Posted on May 3, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Take some time to watch an interesting video, Are We Becoming Bots, presented by tech ethicist David Ryan Polgar. In his video Polgar describes how in today’s digital age, each person is connected to many, many other people. Too many connections can lead individuals to send “botified” responses — meaning that we sometimes behave more like robots and less like people. “Botified” behavior occurs because of the digital world challenges that arise when we try to accommodate way too many online connections. Continue reading “Are You Sometimes “Botified” When You Communicate Online?” →

21st Century life, acceptable use, digital change, digital citizenship, digital devices, digital kids, digital life, parents and technology

Digital Kids to Parents — Don’t Break Your Own Rules! A Poem

Posted on April 30, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Several years ago I uploaded a post, Advice from Digital Kids to Parents, including some of the thoughts that kids in grades 3-6 shared with me about adults’ digital activities. My students often commented that it was unfair when parents asked their kids to sign a digital life contract or agreement because adults then proceeded to break many of the common sense rules.

For some time I’ve felt those children’s voices bubbling up with their ideas, and since today (Sunday) is the last day of National Poetry Month 2017, I listened to those voices, penning this poem about kids, parents, contracts, and common sense.

So here’s my second, and I hope amusing poem about digital life from kids’ perspectives. (Read my first poem.) Children have brought up all these events in discussions with during digital citizenship activities.

Hey Mom and Dad…

I’m really glad I got my phone,
It’s cool and lots of fun.
I’m texting friends and playing games,
It seems I’m never done.

I signed your contract with my name,
Yes, it was right to do.
But I wish you’d take the time
To follow those rules too!

Continue reading “Digital Kids to Parents — Don’t Break Your Own Rules! A Poem” →