As I sit here and write this, school is getting to start in a majority of the country. (since you are in FL and I am in NY, I think we can consider the national perspective) Many of you are just getting over the Summer Reading Program, hopefully, parents and teachers will see the fruits of your work. Lets take a look at kids and Web 2.0 this month.
You might be thinking that kids and Web 2.0 go together like peanut butter and jelly but surprisingly enough, not all digital natives are embracing the technology the same way you and your colleauges are. For example, for the most part, kids and teens don't Twitter. They might toot, but they don't tweet! Here are a series of articles from Mashable.com -
Teens Don't Tweet
Ok, lets think about this for a moment - if you are using Twitter as an info feed for your location or dept - who is your audience? Are you hitting the folks you thought you were?
What are the dangers of kids using social network sites? Digital natives, by definition, have always had access to the technology that we are learning. They may not associate the dangers of sharing personal information on the web. Facebook to them is like the phonebook and yellow pages are to us. When you were growing up, did anyone "teach" you about sharing your personal information in the phone book? Probably not, for a variety of reasons. How many of you have been trained, as parents, on how to teach your kids to be safe on the interent? Now we have two problems - kids that don't know better and parents that don't know how to teach them. For example, my oldest daughter Kayla recently received a tourism/travel/vacation planning pack from the state of Colorado. Her mother and I asked if she would take us on her trip. She is eleven, and mentioned that since she needed a ride to the airport anyway, we could probably come too. Cute. This child's parents ARE digi-savy and she has been taught net etiquette, but kids are still kids and providing your name and address to access a website that you want seems easy enough. We determined that she provided her mailing address info to some website that sold it.
eXplorers: Since children make up a large part of the Library's buisness, lets take a look at some of these Web 2.0 applications that are safe to recommend to parents or provide to the little tykes as information resources:Glubble - is a mixture of Flickr, Facebook and a little bit of Power Point. Glubble is perfectly suited to be the default homepage on a family's web browser. It offers a place to upload pictures and the ability to create a family time line to share. Extended family and friends can be invited into the page and kids can create and edit their own page. Glubble also has pre-selected website destinations for kids or parents can add to the list with their own choices. Not bad - I created a page for my family and invited our kids - we will see where it goes.
Kids Tube - bills itself as the biggest kids video site on the internet. Youtube isn't the best place for kids to hang out on. Kids Tube probably won't cut it for kids that are used to the huge variety on Youtube, BUT if they are doing research for a school project, or need video to include in anything, Kid Tube might be a good place to suggest.
Quintura for Kids - Quintura is a visual search engine - I believe that we examined it in Learn 2.1. Quintura for Kids uses a combination of visual icons, phrases and traditional word boxes to focus down to what the child is searching for. Take the tour before you use it, it makes it easier to understand!
Ask For Kids - Ask.com scaled their regular search engine to make it appropriate for kids. I did a search for Hannah Montanna and it returned the official fan web site and a few Disney sponsored links.
In your blog, tell us about your experiences with these websites. Are there any others that you could recommend for kids?
AdventurersSince you are all living on the cutting edge of technology, lets take a look at an application that might make your life a little easier. Friendfeed is a one stop feeder service for all of your social media accounts. Take a look: Friend Feed
Facebook quizes are the most popular application on Facebook, but are they taking more than you are giving? You hated quizes in school, what makes you think that they are good for you now? Take a look and change your ways! Facebook Quiz link
Thanks for the info on the Facebook quiz. I'm always amazed at the amount of information some people are willing to share, but to learn that their actions could also share my info was very surprising. Lesson learned - always check your privacy settings!!!
ReplyDeleteI thought that it was enough just by having my profile private. Info like this makes me enjoy 2.5 even more.
ReplyDeleteI will seriously consider NOT taking FB quizzes in the future. And I modified my privacy settings greatly because I had no idea that my friends' actions could share my info!
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