Media! Tech! Parenting!

digital parenting, family conversations, media literacy, parents and technology, teaching

Media Literacy in Bhutan

Posted on January 29, 2012March 19, 2019 by Marti Weston

Question: What’s the last nation in the world to have television reception?

Answer: Bhutan, which used to be an absolute monarchy and is now building democratic institutions as a constitutional monarchy.

bt-map — Bhutan map from the CIA Factbook.

What a great bit of digital world trivia to begin a family media literacy conversation!

According to this press story from Ithaca College, the Kingdom of Bhutan invited representatives from the school’s media literacy initiative, Project Look Sharp, to work with the Ministry of Education and help train the country’s teachers to understand and use media literacy principles.

As Bhutan develops democratic institutions, encouraging citizens to assume the responsibilities of civic participation, the country’s leaders want to ensure that the strengths of traditional Buddhist life are not overwhelmed by the exposure to western media influences.

Continue reading “Media Literacy in Bhutan” →

digital parenting, electronic communication, family conversations, parents and technology, social media, social networking, teaching digital kids

Twitter Stats for the State of the Union

Posted on January 25, 2012March 19, 2019 by Marti Weston

Politico, a Washington weekly newspaper that meticulously covers all things political, published this nifty Twitter graphic illustrating the tweeting environment during 2012 State of the Union (SOTU) speech. The data collection begins around 9:05 and continues until 10:40 eastern time. President Obama entered the chamber around 9:05 and the Republican response ended around 10:40.

The infographic includes a huge amount of data, illustrating the times (and issues), when the frequency of #SOTU tweets went up, and other hashtag (#) topics that people included in their tweets.

Twitter’s infographic illustrates an enormous amount of social networking activity. Use it as a classroom or dinner table conversation topic. providing a glimpse into real-time civics and history.

digital citizenship, digital learning, family conversations, parents and technology, privacy

Safe Passwords: A Reminder for Parents, Kids, and Teachers

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Marti Weston

A recent New York Times article, Young, in Love, and Sharing Everything, Including a Password, reminds parents and teachers to take time to talk to adolescents about password privacy. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Matt Richtel, reports that kids share passwords — just as they share gifts and secrets — as tokens of trust and affection. But often an adolescent relationship doesn’t last and neither does the trust. What happens afterward can lead to hurt and humiliation.

Don’t wait until pre-adolescent years to start talking about digital topics such as password privacy. Family conversations, at home and at school, can begin as soon as children receive their first passwords, and over time these talks help kids develop a sense of personal privacy. Discussions can be brief and range over lots of digital topics, but they should occur regularly.

Many adults will be pleasantly surprised that children want to talk about these issues. My post, The Digital Citizenship Minute at the Teaching Tolerance blog, highlights some of the topics fifth graders want adults to address.

digital citizenship, digital parenting, family conversations, parents and technology, privacy, resources to read

SOPA Best Coverage: We Need to Learn More Since It Will Be Back

Posted on January 23, 2012March 19, 2019 by Marti Weston

So maybe, other than discovering that Wikipedia wasn’t working very well, you did not really get into all of the brouhaha about SOPA.

Fine, but if you read blogs or write for blogs or just do a lot on the web, you need to learn a lot about this issue. Below is a basic reading list, culled reliable press sources, to help you understand more.

What stands out in many of the articles, is how many of our representatives in Congress do not know or even understand enough about the digital world to be making policy about it. I wonder how many representatives and senators based a decision on a single staff memo or an index card with important (but perhaps poorly explained) bullet points? Right now the bill is not going anywhere, but this issue will come back.

Educate yourself by reading some of the articles below. Continue reading “SOPA Best Coverage: We Need to Learn More Since It Will Be Back” →

digital devices and gadgets, digital parenting, family conversations, parents and technology, Screen-Free Week, setting technology limits, teaching digital kids

Screen Free Week — for Schools, Churches, and Families

Posted on January 20, 2012February 27, 2015 by Marti Weston

Every year the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood sponsors Screen Free Week.

The April 30-May 6, 2012 week-long activity, which for years was a turn-off-the-TV event, aims to encourage children and their families (and yes, adults with their digital devices), to be less dependent on activities in front of screens, encouraging all of us to consider other types of activities such as reading, playing outside, board games and exercise.

The point of Screen-Free Week is not to forget about digital activities, stop doing homework, and ignore the work that needs to be accomplished each day. Rather it’s a time to think carefully about the digital screen logjam in our lives and consider just how much time we are spending in front of TV, computers, iPods, iPhones, Blackberries, and other gadgets — and whether some of that time is better used for other things.

Just about everyone needs to come up with strategies to balance screen time activities with the rest of our lives, perhaps adding a bit more variation and creativity to our daily endeavors. But the week can also be a time to think about the quality of life. We should be asking ourselves, “How can we use our devices to learn and collaborate more, and are there ways they might help us grown into more productive citizens?”

The organization’s website describes the week as a celebration. Continue reading “Screen Free Week — for Schools, Churches, and Families” →

Bookmark It!, digital learning, digital parenting, digital world reading habits, resources to read

International Children’s Digital Library: Changing the World One Book at a Time

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Marti Weston

What if our children had instant access to a library with thousands of books from countries all over the world — a place that invited them to drop by, read, and learn about one another (and without driving)? Imagine what they could find out about the world’s cultures, celebrations, languages, differences, and also about what they have in common.

That just about describes the mission of the International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL), an online destination hosted at the University of Maryland. The massive website, with digitized books in 61 languages is the largest online collection of multicultural children’s literature, and everything on the site promotes reading and the love of diversity.

Continue reading “International Children’s Digital Library: Changing the World One Book at a Time” →

parents and technology