By Lynette Owens
Week of September 23, 2013
To help you keep up with what’s going on with kids, families, schools, and technology, we’ve compiled a list of stories, tips, and insights, we’ve found most useful over the past week. What have you been reading? Tell us below or Tweet @TrendISKF.
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NEW ONLINE ERASER LAW FOR TEENS: California teens will now have the chance to remove online posts they might regret because of a new state law signed by California Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this week. It’s the first of its kind for the U.S. Many sites already allow you to remove content, but not all. Unfortunately, the message here is “Let your mistakes be taken care of by technology.” Kids make mistakes, and we have to help them learn from them. How will we teach kids to think about the consequences of their actions if there are none?
UNIVERSITIES MONITORING SOCIAL MEDIA: Schools like Northern Illinois University are now closely monitoring social media activities of its various staff and departments. Many organizations are challenged with doing this, but it’s an important activity for them to make sure there’s nothing of concern out there (libel, confidential information, etc.). This case reinforces an important lesson for kids early on: take great care before you post. Post things you won’t later regret, make clear what your own opinion is versus who you’re affiliated with, and use social media understanding that once it’s online, people may be watching very closely.
KIDS AND PHONES: In “Is a Smart Phone A Dumb Idea For a Small Child?” family blogger Catherine Pearlman shares her dilemma of whether or not to purchase a smart phone for her daughter and what to consider before doing so.
TEENS SUPPORTING TEENS: Nine teens in Minneapolis launched protectmyrep.org, an engaging and teen-driven website to encourage teens to have fun with social media, but to be smart about it. The thinking is that teens might actually listen to advice and mistakes from their peers more than advice or admonitions from their parents. Like our What’s Your Story? contest, we’re in complete agreement of the power of peers.
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.