2. • Parents are an interest community about
young people's constructive engagement in
new media.
• The community can be formal or informal
(conceptual), but need to...
• Develop community consciousness – sense
of belonging that empowers, encourages
• By design, community members practice and
model ‘digital citizenship’ for youth
To empower is to engage
3. Create a ‘community newspaper’ to...
• Keep community (parents, teachers, etc.) informed
of our interest-community news
• Make it interactive to give members voice
• Inspire, share stories
• Inform about tech tools and expert advice
• Cover both social-media and online-risk research
• Keep it balanced, non-sensationalized, digestible
To empower is to inform
4. Inform parents about
today’s media environment
• Our “living” Internet – content is behavioral/social
• Users creating the “product” – creating and
changing it continuously, 24/7, in real time
• Web is platform for & mirrors humanity’s sociality,
learning, productions, etc.
• Embedded in our offline lives, in “real life”
• Virtually everywhere (fixed & mobile)
• Same risk spectrum online as offline
5. Today’s most effective ‘filter’
• The software in our heads – as mobile as
children & media are
• All children born with its basic “code”
• Improves with use (customized with user
practice)
• Supports and enhances all other "applications”
• No tech support needed - just parental
support!
6. • Aggressive behavior increases aggressor’s risk
(kindness/respect mitigate). – Archives of Pediatrics
• “A world without risk is undesirable. Children
must learn to take calculated risks” – to develop
resilience. – Livingstone
• Learning to assess risk=long-term safety – Ofsted
• YP “feel a lack of efficacy online ... they don’t
feel they can change anything online.” – GoodPlay
Inform parents about online risk
7. Citizenship:
The most basic definition
“The central task of citizenship
is learning how
to be good to one another.”
– A.J. Patrick Liszkiewicz
8. Digital citizenship
The rights and responsibilities of full, constructive
engagement in participatory media
• Rights are those of offline citizenship
• Responsibilities...
Active critical thinking & ethical choices about
The content and impact of
Our media use on
Ourselves, others, and our community.
“Youth who engage in online aggressive behavior by making rude or nasty comments or frequently embarrassing others are more than twice as likely to report online victimization.” So if aggressive behavior increases risk, civil behavior, kindness decreases it. – ARCHIVES OF PEDIATRICS & ADOLESCENT MEDICINE, 2/07 http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/161/2/138
2) We need to help our children develop RESILIENCE, which Prof. Sonia Livingstone said in a talk in CA early this year develops only thru exposure to risk and developing strategies for coping and avoidance. “A world without risk is undesirable. Children must learn to take calculated risks and, insofar as is possible, cope with the consequences. http://www.scribd.com/doc/27906764/Sonia-Livingstone-2010-Digital-Media-and-Learning-Conference-Keynote
3) Ofsted found the same in its study of UK schools released early this year – that “managed” filtering was better in the long run than locked-down filtering because the former “requires pupils to take responsibility themselves for using new technologies safely.”
https://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-by-type/Thematic-reports/The-safe-use-of-new-technologies
4) That the findings of Dr. Carrie James and other researchers of the Harvard GoodPlay Project said young people feel a lack of efficacy or power to change things online is, I believe, a by-product of constant messaging from adults at home, in school, in the news media that youth are potential victims online, rather than active agents for change and social good just as they are offline. It's also a by-product of blocking new media from school and leaving young people largely on their own in new media. Dr. James also highlighted the “absence of moral and ethical supports for youth [from adults] in online life.” [See http://www.netfamilynews.org/?p=29466]
“Citizenship & the social Web mirror in our faces 24/7”
<http://www.netfamilynews.org/?p=28792>
Two professors of psychology at Williams College in MA in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/opinion/23engel.html
[See also: “Why digital citizenship is a hot topic (globally)” http://www.netfamilynews.org/?p=29466 and “Digital risk, digital citizenship”
<http://www.netfamilynews.org/2009/05/digital-risk-digital-citizenship.html>.]