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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup for this final week of March:


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'Safe & Smart' online: Major study

A definitive study of interest to parents and teachers was released this week - "Safe & Smart: Research and Guidelines for Children's Use of the Internet". More than 1,700 parents were surveyed about kids' Net use and grownups' role in the online life of children. Next week (April 3-7) the rest of us can participate in a discussion on this vital subject at EDvancenet.org (click on "Community Center" from the home page) moderated by 'Safe & Smart' contributor Shelley Pasnik. The national survey was conducted by the National School Boards Foundation and market researchers Grunwald Associates and funded by Children's Television Workshop and Microsoft.

We think you'll be as interested as we were in some of the survey's findings:

There's a great deal more in "Safe & Smart" - including guidelines for parents and school leaders, data on how schools are helping to bridge the digital divide, and a comprehensive report on government regulation and children's-Internet-industry trends. But the bottom line, says contributor Shelley Pasnik, is that "parents and children alike view the Internet as a positive new force in children's lives."

But tell us where you stand on any of these subjects - restricting kids' use, whether the Net enhances communication or isolates, what parents' role is in kids' online time, what schools can do to close the digital divide. We appreciate your comments! You know the address: feedback@netfamilynews.org.

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Web News Briefs

  1. The privacy scramble

    Children's Web sites are scrambling to get compliant by April 21, when the Federal Trade Commission's rules for compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act go into effect. In its update on how they're doing, CNET reports that sites that ignore the law can expect fines of $11,000 for each violation. Chalk up a few of those, and compliance, at a minimum cost of $50,000, begins to look like a bargain.

  2. The hacker ethic

    And while we're on the subject of what rules the Internet (or governs its growth, anyway), a look at motivations….

    First there was the passion for computers in Silicon Valley, hotbed of cyberspace development, then there was the passion for money. According to an interesting New York Times piece about the origins of one ethic now governing the Internet, today Silicon Valley runs on both passions. In addition to greed, writes John Markoff, "the valley also continues to be driven by a more ethereal and in many ways purer motive - what is called 'the hacker ethic,' a reference to the values of passionate programmers, and not, in a more modern definition of 'hacker,' to an outlaw subculture." We think this piece offers excellent background on Internet culture.

    For this week's coverage of the latest clash between the hacker ethic and corporate America, see a Wired News article on Mattel's lawsuit against programmers who wrote "cphack," which reveals the "secret list of off-limits [including sexually explicit] Web sites blocked by Mattel's CyberPatrol software. (This is an update of our report last week.)

  3. French resistance

    You might call it the French Resistance of the Internet Age. "The French," as a British newspaper puts it, "are digging in against the 'dot com' revolution." The Electronic Telegraph reports that, at the European Union's "dot-com summit" in Lisbon last week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair had quite a struggle against French opposition to radical moves that would open European economies to competition and enable them to benefit from the Internet boom. Blair and other European leaders had hoped that the summit would "demonstrate that Europe was determined to embrace new technology and compete with America in electronic commerce and the 'knowledge economy'," according to the Telegraph. As for France's representatives at the summit, the Telegraph reports that they said the "savage mergers" of businesses involved in the new economy are "inhuman, having a traumatic effect on the lives of workers and their families and … 'turning a lot of people against European integration'."

    Meanwhile, ZDNet asks (and partially answers) "Why the Net doesn't belong to America" and what some of the implications of the rulings of national governments are. See "Talkback" at the bottom of the page for readers' interesting responses - e.g, the idea of an Internet constitution and bill of rights.

  4. Educational bells and whistles

    Simply using the Internet in the classroom is not enough, says Elliot Soloway, a University of Michigan professor of education and engineering. According to Wired News, he says most Web sites are largely text, and - to students - text is boring. What kids really want is an interactive, multimedia environment in which to work. Click to Page 2 of the report for some examples of what he's talking about.

    And don't miss a New York Times story that brings new meaning to the term, "skipping class." Among other things, it's about how the requirement by many colleges that students have laptops is creating new forms of classroom distraction, campus socializing, and - oh yeah - teaching methodology ("Students, please type into a chat room instead of raising your hand.").

  5. Cyberangels take wing

    Wired News has a profile of the organization and its expansion at the hands of executive director Parry Aftab. Scroll down to the bottom of the piece for a list of children's sites that were honored by Cyberangels this week at its Kids Internet Summit.

  6. Stopping Net stalking: Update

    This week families of victims asked a US Senate panel to help stop cyberstalking. "The Senate is expected to take up an overall Internet Security Act soon," Wired News reports, adding that Sen. Judd Gregg (R) of New Hampshire, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families, said he would offer an amendment to make it illegal to sell someone's Social Security number without his or her consent. Sen. Chris Dodd (D) of Connecticut said he'd co-sponsor the bill. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has an 800 number (843-5678) and a CyberTipline for the reporting of cyberstalking and other incidents endangering online kids.

  7. 1 billion by 2005?

    That's Internet users worldwide, according to a survey by market researchers Angus Reid Group. They're basing that figure on the current growth rate and current usage: more than 300 million people on the Net now and as many as 150 million more planning to get connected this year. According to CyberAtlas, the study, conducted by telephone or in person, surveyed 28,374 Internet users and consumers in 34 countries.

    As for Net use in the US, a DC-based research firm, Strategis Group, says more than half of US adults, or 106 million, now use the Internet on a regular basis. That's from a report in NetworkWorldFusion.

  8. Kids on digital divide

    At the Digital Divide Youth Summit in San Francisco this week, middle and high school students voiced their own opinions about the importance of access to technology. According to Wired News, their loudest message is that "there won't be an employee shortage in the tech industry for long if businesses start providing computer training and access to the workers of tomorrow." This might be good fodder for a classroom debate on the digital divide. We'd love to hear from teachers who stage debates on any Internet-related subject.

  9. Online 'graduation'

    Phony online degrees are the latest Internet scam to watch out for. Wired News reports that cyber-diploma mills represent the dark side of the distance-learning boom.

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A child's special gifts

You may have heard of psychologist and Harvard education professor Howard Gardner. We've long thought highly of his theory of multiple intelligences, so we were interested to hear about a new feature in FamilyEducation.com - "What Are Your Child's Special Gifts?" - based on Gardner's groundbreaking theory. You might find it useful.

In his 1983 book, "Frames of Mind," Gardner proposed that people can be intelligent in different ways: linguistically, logically/mathematically, spatially (pictures, images, negotiating space), kinesthetically (intelligence of the whole body and hands), musically (tone, rhythm, timbre), interpersonally, intrapersonally (self-knowledge), and naturalistically (nature and classification).

Everybody has all eight intelligences, he proposed. How they're uniquely expressed in each individual and which ones become more developed depend on environment, culture, and genetic makeup, reports FamilyEducation.com. Thomas Armstrong built on Gardner's theory with his book, "Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom," published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Developments (ASCD) in 1994. The "Special Gifts" feature was co-developed by ASCD and FamilyEducation.com.

Multiple intelligences is not about labeling children. We remember attending a conference at Harvard years ago: Howard Gardner spoke about his theory and another book he was working on, "Creating Minds," about Gandhi, Einstein, Stravinski, Graham, and other great creative thinkers. What stood out to us was his emphasis on the need to expose children to a variety of activities and observe them carefully in order to see how their intelligences function together, which ones shine, and what talents and activities they seem to be leading the child to. This rich exposure for the child and observation on the part of parents and teachers helps us figure out how to nurture his or her developing talents and interests. It's an approach that might translate well to working with children on the Internet!

If any of you have worked with Gardner's theory, or if you try the "Special Gifts" exercise, do email us your comments.

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Updating Uncle Sam

The Federal Communications Commission has asked for public comment on how digital TV broadcasters can best serve the public interest, and children's advocates have stepped up to the plate.

"In 1996 the government handed broadcasters $70 billion worth of public airways they can use to transmit multiple digital channels," said Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Center for Media Education (CME). That means broadcasting has entered the Internet Age, and the 1990 Children's Television Act and other "guidance" for broadcasters are very much in need of updating.

This week CME, the National PTA, the National Education Association, and a number of other groups looking after children's interests asked the FCC to develop: 1) "guidelines on how digital TV broadcasters can meet the educational and informational needs of children" and 2) "new rules on digital advertising, marketing, and data collection directed at children." They were responding to the FCC request for comment with a formal "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" for the digital spectrum. They are concerned, they say, about how this "national resource" is used. They aim to "safeguard children's privacy on DTV because of its interactive capabilities and keep advertisers from using DTV to link children to marketing Web sites." Specifically, they asked the FCC to:

If you have comments on broadcasters' obligations, do email us.

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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Net Family News


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