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Teaching Kids to Search Well and Evaluate What They Find
My post, Back-to-School Research Tip: Help Your Child Use Curated Online Databases, is posted over at the Platform for Good website. It describes strategies that parents and educators can use to help...
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5 Digital Parenting Questions to Ask As Your Kids Return to School
Now that we are all returning to school routines, take the time to make a few 21st Century family decisions — choices that can help the device-users in your family grow more careful, thoughtful, and...
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So I Just Won’t Use the Cloud! Really?
Over the past several days I’ve heard more people say that they will stop using the cloud — a reaction to the stolen pictures, possibly taken from iCloud, of movie stars and celebrities (September...
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Good Writing Online? Fifth Graders Give Advice
Last year, after a lesson comparing formal and informal online writing, I asked GDS fifth graders to reflect on what they had learned. We also discussed the effect writing can have on a reading...
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Calculate Your Digital Footprints: Then Curate Them
I’ve written before about the need for all of us — 21st Century kids and parents — to understand just how many digital footprints we create during a single day — from email and texts to social media...
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Family Online Safety Institute Conference 2014: Lots to Learn
A year has passed and once again I’ve attended the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) annual conference — this time the 2014 edition. I was especially excited to be learning, connecting, and...
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Needed: 2015 Digital Rules-of-the-Road for Kids’ New Smart Devices
After the December holidays, lots of digital kids will begin using new handheld devices, but as these new gadgets come out of their boxes, parents need to update or introduce a family digital device...
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Resolution 2015: Focus on Family Members’ Digital Footprints
Digital footprints — those small bits of digital information collected and compiled on each individual — can portray a person in all sorts of ways. Everything we do on the web or with when we interact...
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Sexting Information for Concerned Parents from FOSI
If you worry about sexting, your child, and even the friends of your children, take a few minutes to read a Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) digital parenting brief, Sexting: Felony or Flirting?...
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Needed: Ongoing Social Media Conversations About Image Sharing
If your children are using or begging to use Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, or the many other apps on their digital devices that share media, it’s time to get serious about conversations on social media...
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5 Screen Name Tips for Digital Parents
The best screen names are boring. In a connected world, where even a nuanced word association can invite unfortunate behavior, 21st Century parents need to keep an eye on the online names that children...
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Play in the Social Media Sandbox? Decisions, Decisions!
Check out Nick Bilton’s New York Times article, Letting Your Kids Play in the Social Media Sandbox. The February 18, 2015 piece shares Bilton’s experience as he considers how much initial access his...
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Google Dashboard: A Connected-World Teaching Tool for All Ages
If you use Google, take a few minutes to check out the Google Dashboard and look over a detailed digital footprint snapshot of your Google activities. Learning about digital footprints is an important...
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Don’t Be Afraid of Device-free Times in Your Family!
My March 2011 post, Five Tech-free Times for Families, discussed the importance of planning family time-out activities away from digital devices. Time away from screens, I noted, provides family...
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Sharenting? Kids Are Beginning to Notice
Two years ago, for the first time, students took me aside to wonder aloud how to go about asking their parents not to share photos. It happened again last year when a child commented about baby photos...
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Parents: Discover Your Digital Footprints & Teach Your Children Well
Yes, once again it’s summer! To celebrate the season I’m writing specifically for the parents of digital kids — suggesting ways that parents can use this more relaxed time of year to learn more about...
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Making Digital Parenting Easier, Not Scarier
It’s nearly impossible to compare the parental responsibilities before and after the onset of the digital age. Parents today encounter one challenge after another, and each family member lives a...
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Pinterest: A Digital Passport to the World of Images
If you are the parent of a 21st Century digital kid, and you want to try something new in the turbulent, always-changing social media world, you might explore Pinterest — a social media site that...
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Now In Top 10 Child Health Concerns: Internet Safety & Sexting
C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health conducts regular surveys several times each year polling adults in around 2000 randomly selected, nationally representative households,...
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Digital Parenting Booster Shot? A Healthy Child Metaphor
If you are an educator or parent searching for just the right comments about digital parenting to use at a school, organization, or parent meeting, take a look at the blog post A Booster Shot on...
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