Linda Burch: Engaging Parents In Young People’s Digital Media Lives
Filed at 11:17 am on August 4, 2008 • Leave a comment
How can parents gain the understanding, skills and confidence to help young people grow and thrive in the new media culture? The Chief Education and Strategy Officer at Common Sense Media describes a new project to create a digital media education and communication program for parents.
Club Penguin. YouTube. Twitter. MySpace. The digital media that runs through the middle of kids’ lives is evolving at a dizzying pace creating opportunities and challenges for young people that baffle many in their parents’ generation. Parents express concern about the potential risks of kids engaging in new media (from cyberbullying to risky sexual behavior) at the same time that they recognize its potential to inspire creativity, collaboration, and learning. And they struggle with how to help their children grow and thrive in a 24/7 digital world.
In this new project, Common Sense Media is developing a comprehensive digital media education program for parents that helps them gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to safely and positively guide their children through this new media world. As part of this work, we will survey parents to better understand their hopes and concerns and we will introduce them to emerging research on digital media’s impact on young people’s learning and development. We will collaborate with other MacArthur grantees that are developing new media literacy curricula for youth to create complementary materials to educate parents. These materials will include new online and print content such as parenting videos (http://www.commonsensemedia.org/videos) and tips on digital media topics (e.g. cyberbullying, “how to twitter”, avatars and your child’s sense of identity), new reviews and recommended lists (e.g. all about anime, online games that promote global awareness, best websites for tinkerers and inventors), casual games that teach families digital citizenship, and a comprehensive parent guide to young people’s digital lives.
Additionally, we are developing new interactive and community features on our website that will enable the growth of a vibrant online community of parents and educators that pose questions, share concerns and best practices about digital media. We plan to leverage Common Sense Media’s website (http://www.commonsensemedia.org) and distribution partnerships with online, cable and media retailers, as well as our outreach into the schools to bring this research and curricula to a broad audience across the country.
Our ultimate goal is to encourage parents and educators to embrace children’s digital lives, understand both the perils and possibilities, and work together to raise a generation of young people that are safe, smart and ethical creators and consumers of new media.
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Related Links
(1) Slides covering a joint poll from CSM and the Cooney Center called “Growing Up Digital” (also see their announcement)
(2) Video from CSM’s public forum “From MySpace to HipHop”, held with MacArthur this past spring
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