Week 9 - Kids and the risks and opportunities of social media

(Week 9, beginning Sunday March 8th)

This week was going to be about gaming, but I am finding so much about it that I am still sifting through it.

Instead we are going to change gears this week and address what we were going to address next week, namely "Kids and the risks and opportunities of social media." Described below are a few items I would like you to read to prepare you to join in our Google Groups conversation, as well as develop your blog entry at the end of the week.

Kids and social media. The National Institute of Media and the Family has recently published two new reports that do a reasonable job of explaining the risks and rewards of kids and social networking. Go to the Guides section of their website, and download the top two guides that you see:

• Guide to Social Networking: Risks
• Guide to Social Networking: Rewards

They are brief, and easy to scan and refer to later.

Teachers and blogs. This US News and World Report article offers an interesting perspective of the risks and rewards of teachers using blogs:

• Blogging from the Classroom, Teachers Seek Influence, Risk Trouble

Why we fear social media. This brief article was written from a corporate perspective, but adequately describes some of our inherent fears of social media:

• Fear kills social media, from The Buzz Bin by Livingston Communications

Should kids blog? I thought you might enjoy reading a blog that discussed the question, "“Should children be required to blog in grammar school?”

• “Should children be required to blog in grammar school?”
  

Social websites and kids' brains. Here is a fascinating discussion about the impact of social media on kids' brains. I quote from the website: "Susan Greenfield, neuroscientist and head of the Royal Institution, has warned that young people's brains may be fundamentally altered by internet use. Dr Aric Sigman has claimed that sites such as Facebook and Bebo could harm people's health. He joins Jeremy Paxman and Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science and the Guardian column of the same name, to discuss Baroness Greenfield's claims." View it at:

• Social websites- Good for Kids' Brains?
  

Read these, ponder, then dive into the Google Groups conversation.

Jason