family conversations – Page 2 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century life, acceptable use, intolerance, online hate, parents and technology, parents as mentors

Teach Kids to Protect Themselves from Hateful Information Online

Posted on July 5, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

As I’ve thought almost continuously about the nine individuals murdered at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, I’ve also spent time considering how a young person grows into a hateful individual. All children begin life as accepting young beings, but at any age, once exposed to hateful attitudes or violent behavior, attitudes can change dramatically.

I’ve read every article I can find that offers guidance to adults about interpreting horrific events and addressing topics that feel uncomfortable, most recently We Need to Deal With Our Discomfort and Talk to Our Kids About Racism by writer Meghan Leahy in the Washington Post. Interestingly, few of the materials that I’ve read address the issue of online hate, the ease with which users, including kids, can access it, and the need for adults — parents and educators — to ensure that 21s Century children possess the evaluative skills to recognize and thus inoculate themselves from hate material when it pops up on their screens. For parents conversations about race, privilege, extremism, and hate can create a considerable amount of discomfort.

Fifteen years ago only people taught children to hate. Today the transmission of hate doesn’t require human contact or conversation at all — just a computer, some misguided online searches, and a lack of adult supervision. If we want to raise children who recognize racism, understand privilege, and yes, speak out, we must be sure to pay attention to what they do online. Continue reading “Teach Kids to Protect Themselves from Hateful Information Online” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, digital footprints, digital life, family conversations, parents and technology

Parents: Discover Your Digital Footprints & Teach Your Children Well

Posted on June 23, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Yes, once again it’s summer! To celebrate the season I’m writing specifically for the parents of digital kids — suggesting ways that parents can use this more relaxed time of year to learn more about their own digital footprints.

While some of the activities are similar to those in a post from last year, this beginning-of-the-summer blog post aims to help parents gain a greater understanding of digital footprints for themselves — and then share this increased knowledge in conversations with their children. The longer-term goal, of course, is to ensure that each child returns to school in the fall with more knowledge about the family’s digital profile, their own digital footprints, and privacy.

Below are some suggestions to help parents get started learning.

Log in and visit your Google dashboard.

Google yourself. See what digital footprints others see when they Google your name or your email address. Then go to the Dashboard, while you are logged in, and see how Google keeps track of your activities. Dashboard notes everything a person does on Google — from email to images to alerts to searches and much more. Once you finish up learning about your own digital trail, organize a family digital footprint party and help every member of the family go through the same steps.

Continue reading “Parents: Discover Your Digital Footprints & Teach Your Children Well” →

21st Century life, digital life, digital parenting, family conversations, parents and technology, social media, teaching digital kids

So What Happens to Social Media Data? Read the Terms of Service!

Posted on April 30, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

I am preparing to make a presentation to a group of well-informed teens at a school. In the process, I’ve reread the terms of service at a range of social media sites to remind myself about what can potentially happen to the pictures, comments, videos, and other content that we share on social media.

Social media is a part of life in today’s 21st Century world. Rather than wringing our hands about these apps, and the things that can go wrong, it’s a far better strategy for adults to proactively learn about social media, know what their digital children are using, and help them understand the power of social media apps. Moreover, every social media user — young and old — needs to develop strategies to use when things have the potential to go wrong.

Check out the terms of service for your favorite social media site. What do you think these policies mean for the pre-adolescents or teens in your life? The social media companies design these statements — albeit long documents — to make it clear what happens and what does not. What can you do to ensure that your child develops the necessary tools and strategies to think carefully about what content to post and share and what content to avoid sharing? Ongoing conversations about living in the digital world are a critical part of family life.

Each of the clips is from one of the social media websites, and I’ve added a link to each site’s complete terms of service document. Most of the companies want us to understand these documents.

Continue reading “So What Happens to Social Media Data? Read the Terms of Service!” →

21st Century parenting, apps, digital kids, parents and technology, sexting, sharing media

Needed: Ongoing Social Media Conversations About Image Sharing

Posted on January 12, 2015March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

If your children are using or begging to use Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, or the many other apps on their digital devices that share media, it’s time to get serious about conversations on social media and image sharing. Moreover, many other digital device apps exist or suddenly appear that also encourage sharing. (Check out my post that demonstrates just how apps multiply and catch on with kids.)

Sharing apps make users, especially young people, feel like they can have and keep secrets with their friends. Children, and adults, too, like the apps because they claim to offer a modicum privacy and because any media that they share will self-destruct within a few seconds. Voilà – it’s disappeared!

Continue reading “Needed: Ongoing Social Media Conversations About Image Sharing” →

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

Many Tech Executives Are Low Tech Parents

Posted on September 22, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

When 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” →

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 November 8, 2013March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

While 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” →

digital kids, digital parenting, kids' advice for parents, parent child conversations, parents and technology

Advice from Digital Kids to Parents

Posted on September 7, 2013March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Given the chance, kids can offer remarkable insight — good ideas for their parents to consider.

I’ve heard many kids reflect thoughtfully, and not so thoughtfully, on their parents’ digital skills. I often hear my students wonder aloud about why parents don’t always model the digital citizenship expectations that they want their children to learn and apply.

Below are the nine most common “I Wish” statements expressed over the past several years by digital children that I teach. Two of them, I’ll admit, were even mentioned to me by my daughter some years ago. Mea culpa…

Kids Wish Their Parents and Other Adults Would

Try to learn a lot more about computers in particular and technology in general.
Stop saying they don’t know much about technology (mom’s especially)
Not use Blackberries and phones at sports games and school events.
Don’t talk on the phone so much in the car.
Learn to play some of the kids’ online games.
Understand more about helping with searches on the Internet.
Understand how hard it is to learn the technology rules and regulations and not always threaten to take away technology access when there’s a problem.
Stop automatically saying that new things like Wikipedia are questionable.
Try not to act dumb about technology. Even if you don’t understand something, please act like you want to learn new things. Continue reading “Advice from Digital Kids to Parents” →