I especially liked Nos. 4 and 6 in Marian Merritt's blog post about how parents can help their kids keep mobile phone use safe and affordable. If you use cellphone parental controls (she speaks to those, and I wrote about them last May here), "tell your child you are installing and using parental controls and show them the details on what you'll be limiting." She adds that this is not the time to … [Read more...] about Mobile parenting
Ethics & Etiquette
9 parts of digital citizenship
These make complete sense ("complete" as in comprehensive, too). The nine elements grew out of a three-year PhD dissertation project by educator Mike Ribble at Kansas State University. Mike defines "digital citizenship" as "the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use." The nine elements are Digital Etiquette (I think I'd use the broader term "ethics," which … [Read more...] about 9 parts of digital citizenship
How to protect from defamation?
That's an unanswered question where the social Web's concerned. Social sites seem to have more protection from US law than their users have right now. A little-known section of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) is what protects - rightfully, I think - Internet service providers and social-networking sites from liability for what's posted by users of their services, reports … [Read more...] about How to protect from defamation?
Good citizens in virtual worlds, too
I truly believe that children's good citizenship online helps protect them - and it's a large and growing piece of the online-safety puzzle. How so? Because (I know I've quoted this here before) "youth who engage in online aggressive behavior by making rude or nasty comments or frequently embarrassing others are more than twice as likely to report online interpersonal victimization," according to … [Read more...] about Good citizens in virtual worlds, too
Social-networking manners
A Telegraph columnist understandably asks, basically: What's wrong with this picture - a stuffy old publisher "identified in the popular mind with ... the appropriate usage of pudding forks and cheese knives" writing rules for polite social networking? But somebody at Debrett's must have a profile in MySpace, Bebo, or Facebook. They're pretty good rules, actually - except maybe for the one that … [Read more...] about Social-networking manners