This is interesting. University of Southern California Prof. Henry Jenkins didn't put it exactly this way, but I don't think he'd disagree: It's almost as if, at this particular point in history (the history of education, media, and technology, in any case), educators need the same first principle of practice that doctors in emergency medicine have. "Like with a physician, the first statement … [Read more...] about ‘Do no harm’: Message to educators, parents
Henry Jenkins
Today’s ‘low barrier to participation”
Those are media professor Henry Jenkins's words in a talk he gave to USC students' parents this fall about "raising the digital generation." It's good to be reminded that Facebook, MySpace, (or Hyves, studiVZ, or Tuenti in Europe, for example) are not the all of social media for youth – that today's highly interactive, global digital media lower the barrier of participation in all sorts of … [Read more...] about Today’s ‘low barrier to participation”
The new media monsters we’ve created for our kids
In adjusting to a media environment very different from the mass-media one we grew up in, we adults have created some monsters. They're large, intimidating "creatures" that threaten the mutually respectful parent-child and educator-student communication that young people want and deserve in this highly participatory, sometimes overwhelming new media environment.One of the monsters is the "digital … [Read more...] about The new media monsters we’ve created for our kids
Net safety: How social networks can be protective
Hmm. It's arresting to think about what Stewart Wolf, MD, discovered and presented at medical conferences – as told by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers – in the context of social media and online safety today. Back in the 1950s, he found a community in Pennsylvania statistically very free of the No. 1 medical concern of the time, heart disease, and looked into what was going on there. When Wolf … [Read more...] about Net safety: How social networks can be protective
Youth, adults & the social-media shift
No wonder adults, born and raised in the 20th century's mass-media environment are struggling to wrap our brains around current media conditions – and what "Net safety" should look like under them. We're in the middle of a Gutenberg Press-style media shift, multiplied by 3. Author and media pundit Clay Shirky talks about the four previous media shifts that "qualify for the term revolutionary," all … [Read more...] about Youth, adults & the social-media shift