By Lynette Owens
Week of June 23, 2014
FACEBOOK’S DISAPPEARING PHOTO SERVICE: Snapchat continues to bring on more competitors as Facebook launches its Slingshot app, which allows you to connect with phone contacts or Facebook friends and send photos that disappear shortly after they’re viewed. Unlike Snapchat, users have to send a photo in order to view a photo they receive. It’s a strange differentiator designed to encourage more sharing, and its popularity remains to be seen. I wonder if there is any more room for another photo-sharing app on kids’ phones, so we’ll be watching this closely. Still, we need to remind kids that regardless of a photo’s lifespan on a phone, it’s never really disappears – because some other tech can capture it or it lives on in people’s memories. Share, but share wisely.
SUMMERTIME TECH USE OUTDOORS: Educator Beth Holland provides 3 excellent ways to encourage kids to use tech this summer for both fun and learning. Holland writes “Rather than fighting students to relinquish their phones or tablets, what about empowering them to leverage the camera and GPS capabilities in order to extend their experiences?” A great question and even better recommendations that encourage and support healthy minds, bodies, and digital skills.
IS MY CHILD READY FOR A PHONE? : Before buying your child a mobile phone, there are a lot of things to consider. Larry Magid provides a great list of things to ask yourself before you say yes, and provides a link to ConnectSafely’s new Parents Guide to Mobile Phones.
See you next week!
Lynette Owens is Vice President of Global Consumer Education & Marketing at Trend Micro and Founder of the Internet Safety for Kids and Families program. With 25+ years in the tech industry, Lynette speaks and blogs regularly on how to help kids become great digital citizens. She works with communities and 1:1 school districts across the U.S. and around the world to support online safety, digital and media literacy and digital citizenship education. She is a board member of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, an advisory committee member of the Digital Wellness Lab, and serves on the advisory boards of INHOPE and U.S. Safer Internet Day.
Follow her on Twitter @lynettetowens.