Witnessing cyberbullying: Teaching kids how to respond to make things better (not worse)
Parenting is a tough gig. We know it’s going to be hard going into it, but no one really explains how it’s going to all work when we finally get there.
Parenting Princesses
If you haven’t seen the story of the Hot Dog Princess that has been making the rounds of the Internet, I suggest you read this Buzzfeed article. To summarize: it was “Princess Week” at five-year-old Ainsley’s dance class and she decided to wear a hot dog costume. As a parent, this is the kind of youthful impertinence I can get behind. After all, THIS was a princess who really knew who she was, a princess that was not like other princesses, a #hotdogprincess.
Click If You Agree
When you sign up for a service on a website or use an application for the first time, do you read the privacy policy and terms of use thoroughly? Or, like most of us, do you click “I Agree” as fast as you can?
Hooked on classics
A recent issue of Entertainment Weekly was devoted to a list of so-called “new classics,” a top one-hundred list of the best movies, books, TV shows, and so on, published since 1983. The lists themselves are liable to provoke discussion (Die Hard is #9, ahead of Goodfellas, Schindler's List and Unforgiven?) but perhaps a more interesting question is whether, in the Media Age, the very idea of a “classic” still means anything.
A laptop in every pot
The old saying that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer applies to cyberspace, too: these maps comparing router and population density show that the developing world has a long way to go to catch up to North America, Western Europe and Japan when it comes to getting online. The One Laptop Per Child project aims to change all that, designing, constructing and distributing Internet-ready laptops to children in developing countries.
My Voice is Louder Than Hate
My Voice is Louder Than Hate, MediaSmarts’ latest resource, uses digital storytelling and meme making tools to encourage youth to push back when they encounter hate online.
Ethics Online
As the Internet has become more and more central to our lives, our online and offline identities have become less and less separate. Where the Internet was once a place where nobody knew we were dogs and we lived Second Lives as customizable avatars, today we mostly surf the Web as ourselves.
Whac-A-Mole: Keeping up with your kids’ apps and websites
I’ve already written about YouTube and Instagram, but today I wanted to share some information about four other popular sites and apps that are on my radar right now: Snapchat, Vine, Tumblr and ask.fm.
Public or private? Facebook and the Stefanie Rengel case
With the tremendous success and spread of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, along with home-broadcasting sites such as YouTube and Flickr, many people have become concerned about what effect they will have on our attitudes towards privacy. Now a new question has arisen: whether Facebook postings violate the Youth Criminal Justice Act if they identify suspects or victims covered under the act.