Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

11.6.09 | Pocket Guide to Social Media & Kids: “To adults, cell phones are a communications device. To children, they are a lifeline.” That statement, from a Nielsen article on teens’ use of social media and technology, should come as no surprise to anyone within sight of a teenager. The article, however, is filled with numbers on usage that may impress you. Consider these stats:

“By age 10, roughly half of children own a mobile phone. By age 11, six in ten own a mobile phone. By age 12, fully three-fourths of all children have their own mobile phone. [...] Two-thirds of tween mobile phone owners took pictures with their camera phones in the last year. Half spent time playing the pre-installed games. Four in ten activated the speakerphone feature. Twenty-eight percent filmed a video clip, and 24% listened to the MP3 capability.”

Read on for more information about kids’ use of technology and parental controls.

Think Globally, Learn Locally: Students around the world are using virtual education programs alongside books that promote social justice, reports School Library Journal.

In one example, students are logging in to Google Earth to follow the trek of Greg Mortenson, author of the adult bestseller, “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time” (Viking 2006), which has been adapted for younger audiences.

“These Google Lit Trips, as they’re called, allow students to map Mortenson’s travels, build wikis to share what they’ve learned about the countries the author has visited, and discuss his work as a virtual book group using Skype,” writes SLJ’s Lauren Barack.

Google Promotes Online Safety: To help parents and educators become more involved in kids’ online activities, Google and the Internet Keep Safe Coalition have teamed up for a safety tour, writes Google policy analyst Dorothy Chou.

Kicking off the tour, Google sponsored a panel discussion on Capitol Hill this week “to address some of the key issues around digital media literacy, including how to talk to kids about maintaining their online reputations.” Google has also posted instructional videos about how to stay safe on the web.

Plus: At a conference on online safety, National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow said digital media literacy should be a focus of broadband stimulus funding.

“Congress should direct that the agencies managing distribution of broadband stimulus funding allocate $500 million during the next two years for the development of digital media education tools,” McSlarrow said in a speech to the 2009 Annual Conference of the Family Online Safety Institute. “With a substantial portion of stimulus funding yet to be allocated, and with the broadband adoption rate continuing to increase from coast to coast, we must vigorously renew this call to acknowledge as a national priority digital literacy for children and families.”

Behind the Scenes at Breakthrough: Nafiza Akter, one of nine students who attended last month’s Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age forum at Google headquarters in California, writes about her experience. Besides the wonder of Google snacks and the campus T-Rex, Akter offers her impressions of Google co-founder Sergey Brin (he’s smart) and describes a skit in which “Misunderstood Media Teens” talk about adults not understanding how teens use technology in their lives.

It’s a very detailed post, and Akter, who takes part in the New York Cityafter-school program Global Kids, delivers a great behind-the-scenes account. Unfortunately, one of her souvenirs didn’t make it back home, but Akter keeps it all in perspective:

“The only sad part of the entire thing was that we got Lava Lamps that we couldn’t bring back to New York City due to airport restrictions on carry-on luggage. But hey, physical things can’t compensate for experience and knowledge [...] The experiences we came back with definitely outweigh the ‘stuff’ we came back with, since stuff will eventually get thrown out or lost, but the experiences contribute to who we are and have/will become.”

Previously at Spotlight: Read Akter’s blog post about her work in Global Kids’ virtual video project, and watch her in action in her Digital Generation Youth Video Portrait.