Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

4.12.10 | Teaching Online Behavior: When it comes to educating kids about online safety, parental anxiety about adult predators has “given way to concerns about how their children are acting online toward friends and rivals, and what impression their online profiles might create in the minds of college admissions officers or future employers,” writes Stephanie Clifford in The New York Times.

To address those concerns, school districts are turning to curriculum lessons designed by Common Sense Media that educate students about the ethical considerations of their online behavior:

Common Sense’s classes, based on research by Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychology and education professor, are grouped into topics he calls “ethical fault lines”: identity (how do you present yourself online?); privacy (the world can see everything you write); ownership (plagiarism, reproducing creative work); credibility (legitimate sources of information); and community (interacting with others). [...]

Common Sense bases all its case studies on real life, and insists on the students’ participation. “If you just stand up and deliver a lecture on intellectual property, it has no meaning for the kids,” said Constance M. Yowell, director of education for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which has provided financing.

Plus: “The mother of a 16-year-old boy said she was only being a good mom when she locked him out of his Facebook account after reading he had driven home at 95 mph one night because he was mad at a girl. His response: a harassment complaint at the local courthouse.” Continue reading this AP story in the Boston Globe ...

Reconsidering Anonymity: After being among the last to embrace public comments and interaction, more news sites are now considering tamping down on anonymous comments and requiring registration to participate in online discussions, reports The New York Times.

While there’s good reason a commenter would want his or her identity protected, “a lot of comment boards turn into the equivalent of a barroom brawl, with most of the participants having blood-alcohol levels of 0.10 or higher,” said William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia’s journalism school. “People who might have something useful to say are less willing to participate in boards where the tomatoes are being thrown.”

One reason for moving away from anonymity is to encoruage more substantive comments, but online attitudes are also shifting, the story notes, because more young people are comfortable attaching a name—and even a picture—when they post their opinions and share information on social networking sites. 

“There is a younger generation that doesn’t feel the same need for privacy,” said Arianna Huffington, a founder of The Huffington Post. “Many people, when you give them other choices, they choose not to be anonymous.”

Google Gives Buzz Tips to Teens: In response to concerns from parents that their children were unknowingly sharing details and private conversations with strangers via Buzz, Google’s new social network, Google has created a safety tips video aimed at teens (see below). The video notes that Buzz, like all Google products, should only be used by those age 13 and older, but Google has only recently started asking for age information, writes Jessica Guynn at the L.A. Times. Guynn also notes:

In the meantime, the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the decade-old Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The law went into effect in 2000. It requires websites and online service providers to get parental permission before collecting or using personal information from children younger than 13.

The FTC, which reviews the law every five years, is asking a critical question: Should the definition of Internet be expanded to include mobile communications, gaming and interactive television?

This could set the stage for a new battle between online marketers and privacy advocates. If you want to comment, go here.

 

Dad, What’s a Keyboard?: Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company, predicts that by 2015, more than 50 percent of PCs purchased for kids under the age of 15 will have touchscreens. That’s potentially a huge increase from current numbers: Fewer than 2 percent were purchased with touchscreens in 2009.

Yet Gartner is also predicting that fewer than 10 percent of PCs sold to enterprises in 2015 will have touchscreens, so there’s a big divide between what kids and adults will be using. Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb has more on Gartner’s report, which is available here for purchase, and her feelings as a parent.