Editor's note: This week, my holiday gift to you, dear readers. Below you'll find Part 1 of a three-part series of guest posts by teacher Marianne Malmstrom about what students learning in digital environments can teach all of us – parents, educators, risk prevention experts, and anybody else who works with young people. Editing this series felt like a gift to me, and it'll keep on giving, because … [Read more...] about Mining Minecraft, Part 1: Little gamers’ digital play through a teacher’s eyes
virtual worlds
‘Save the Universe’: Clear space for learning
Last week, Part 1 about the "whitewater-kayaking kind of learning needed today"; here, in Part 2, a great example: An alternative headline might be: "A bucket of bricks for learning," but I'll get to the bricks in a minute. First the backstory. Marianne Malmstrom teaches the richest possible kind of media literacy to and with, elementary and middle school students at the Elisabeth Morrow School … [Read more...] about ‘Save the Universe’: Clear space for learning
Cyberbullying: The view from behind a kids’ Web site
As a parent or educator, have you ever wondered what bullying and harassment look like from the other side of your kids' favorite online spaces – to the people who run them, moderate the action, and get those "abuse reports" users click on for all kinds of reasons? Moderators and community managers have an indispensable perspective to bring to the public discussion about cyberbullying, so I'm … [Read more...] about Cyberbullying: The view from behind a kids’ Web site
Kids’ virtual worlds thriving
The overall numbers are surprisingly high (more on that in a second), but worth noting about UK-based virtual-world market-research firm KZero's latest data is the growth figure: "the largest quarterly increase since we started tracking in 2008" – an increase of 214 million accounts between Q1 and Q2 2011, KZero says. This is kid virtual-world users we're talking about. The fastest-growing worlds … [Read more...] about Kids’ virtual worlds thriving
How the Net industry can help get us all to Online Safety 3.0
This is great, an early sign of the Internet industry's piece of OS 3.0: what the popular teen social site MyYearbook.com is doing for Reachout.com, a nonprofit support and suicide-prevention site for teens on the social Web (it now has a US base too, but since its start in Australia, that country "has seen a 56% reduction in youth suicide rates," the site says). Here's how Reach Out describes … [Read more...] about How the Net industry can help get us all to Online Safety 3.0