Book Review: Talking Back to Facebook

Talking Back to Facebook: The Common Sense Guide to Raising Kids in the Digital Age

by James P. Steyer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

James Steyer, acclaimed founder of Common Sense Media, has written often in articles and websites on the affect that social networks are having on our children. In his latest book, Talking Back to Facebook (Scribner 2012), Steyer discusses worries on every parent’s mind about the social media engulfing our children.

With so much of education and play time revolving around digital devices like iPads, computers, Wii, apps, and more, parents have a right to be concerned and should question whether this tsunamic trend is healthy for a child’s developing cognitive and psychological functions. Steyer’s premise is that the obsession with Facebook and its ilk, as it seeps into younger and younger age groups, can be dangerous and must be controlled. To support his hypothesis, he covers important topics such as:

Why do Educators Use Pinterest?

Website Review: Chegg

Every Friday, I share a website or app that I’ve heard about, checked into, and/or gotten excited to use. This one is an all-in-one textbook provider. I love any website that makes necessary chores easier–and this one does. If you’ve never heard of Chegg, ask your college-age children or relatives. Or look for the orange boxes in college dorms. Everyone in higher education knows about Chegg.

Chegg books, ebooks, homework help, flashcards, and more

Age:

5th-college

10 Things My Blog Taught Me

Photo credit: Nemo

When I started this blog three years and 657 posts ago, I wasn’t sure where to take it. I knew I wanted to connect with other tech teachers so I used that as the theme. Now, thanks to the 491,000+ people who have visited, I know much more about the ‘why’. It’s about getting to know kindred souls, but there is so much more I’ve gotten from blogging. Like these:

How to write

We bloggers divide ourselves into two categories: 1) those who write short, under-1000-word posts and 2) those who write in-depth, lengthy articles. I’ve chosen the former. I like pithy ideas that my readers can consume in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. As a result, I’ve learned to be frugal with my words. I choose verbiage that conveys more than one-word’s-worth of information and I leave tangential issues for another post. Because I realize readers are consuming on the run, I make sure to be clear–no misplaced pronouns or fuzzy concepts like ‘thing’ or ‘something’.

Prove my point

This part of writing transcends what print journalists must do. Yes, they do it, but my readers expect me to support ideas with interactive links to sources. If I’m reviewing a tech ed concept, I link to other websites for deeper reading. That’s something that can’t happen in paper writing. Sure, they can provide the link, but to put the paper down, open the laptop, copy that link–I mean, who does that? In a blog, I get annoyed if someone cites research and doesn’t provide the link.

Listen

When I write an article, I cross post to other parts of my PLN, sometimes to ezines I contribute to in other parts of the world.

And then I listen. What are readers saying? What are their comments/suggestions to me? Often, I learn as much from readers as what I thought I knew when I wrote the article.

For example, I get many emails from tech ed professionals with questions about our field. I used to answer them based on my experience. Now, I have my Dear Otto series where I share my thoughts and solicit input from readers. Wow–have I learned a lot from that! The flipped blog–teacher becomes student.

13 ways Twitter Improves Education

Twitter can easily be dismissed as a waste of time in the elementary school classroom. Students will get distracted. Students will see tweets they shouldn’t at their age. How does one

How would you use Twitter in your classroom?

manage a room full of Tweeple without cell phones? Is it even appropriate for the lower grades?

Here’s some ammunition for what often turns into a pitched, take-sides verbal brawl as well-intended teachers try to come to a compromise on using Twitter (in fact, many of the new Web 2.0 tools–blogs, wikis, websites that require registrations and log-ins, discussion forums. You can probably add to this list) that works for all stakeholders:

You learn to be concise.

Twitter gives you only 140 characters to get the entire message across. Letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation and spaces all count as characters on Twitter. Wordiness doesn’t work. Twitter counts every keystroke and won’t publish anything with a minus in front of the word count.

Should You Dump Twitter?

Do you have too many social media obligations–FB, G+, Goodreads, Twitter? Are you wondering if it’s worth the time?

Flowtown has a nice, neat decision matrix to assist you. Answer the questions; follow the arrows. See where you end up at the end:

Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application

29 Steps to Internet Safety for Kids

Photo credit: Public domain pictures

This is a great list from Deb Ng, founder and former owner of the Freelance Writing Jobs. I thought hard about what she’d written to see if I could add anything, enhance or disagree.

Nothing. It’s a great list, as good as any I’ve seen since social media exploded on the education landscape. Read and take note:

Most of my online crowd are savvy when it comes to the Internet. We know how to navigate, can spot shady characters at a glance, and can quickly spy inaccurate and poorly written content. However, there’s a whole generation of young people out there who don’t know any of this. And it’s not a slam on their intelligence, either. Not everyone knows enough about predators, privacy and SEO content to educate their kids, and it’s not something so quickly offered in school. We’re getting better at teaching our kids the ropes online, but there are still some areas in which we’re falling short.

Why are we so good about teaching our kids how to avoid shady situations in the real world, but remiss when it comes to the unsavory online stuff?

I recently experienced a circumstance where my son viewed something extremely adult online, despite parental control settings. And though I haven’t been too lax about keeping an eye on his online habits, it got me thinking about all the things all parents should be teaching their kids about using the Internet.

Here’s my list – I hope when you’re done reading, you’ll add your own items to the list because I know there’s much more.

1. Not everything you read online is true: It used to be anything we read in print was true. We could trust newspapers, magazines and books as reliable sources of information. It’s not the same with the web. Since anyone can become published, some of the stuff you’re reading online isn’t true. Even worse, some people are just rewriting stuff they read from other people online, so you might be reading the same false information over and over again. Even Wikipedia isn’t necessarily a reliable source. If you’re researching something online, consider the source. Some poorly written, ramdom web page, isn’t necessarily a good source. However, if you find a .gov or .org site, the information has a better chance of being true. Always look at who owns the website and whether or not they have an agenda before considering whether or not certain information is true.

My G+ Stream is a Trickle

Connect with me!

If you’re on Google Plus, would you please connect with me? I have a lot of writers over there, but few educators and/or techies. Click here.Say hi. Tell me what you’re doing in your tech class.

Follow me

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and author of two technology training books for middle school. She wrote Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and Innovate My School, and a bi-monthly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller for her agent that should be be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office, WordDreams, or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

Unlocking Social Networking for Schools

Please join me in welcoming my guest, Brent Thurrell. Brent is the CEO of Scholabo Ltd a company he founded to help his children’s school reduce their reliance on paper and move their communications strategy into the 21st century. What started as a small project rapidly developed into a passion to help strengthen the relationship between schools and parents everywhere. Before Scholabo, Brent worked in the world of information security and identity management across multiple projects in sectors from global finance through to government and defence.

Brent saw an article I wrote for Innovate My School entitled How to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the classroom and contacted me to chat about social networks in schools. When I heard his thoughts, I asked if he’d share his vision with my readers. Here are his thoughts:

Unlocking Social Networking for Schools

If you read the title of this article and the blood in your veins runs cold at the mere mention of ‘social networking’, chances are you’re probably a teacher. Don’t worry though– this is a very common reaction and this article has been written to ease your now elevated heart rate and, hopefully, give you a new perspective about how the ‘principles’ of social networking can be applied to positive effect in your school.

To start with, we are not going to be talking here about social networking involving any form of pupil participation – that should have you relaxing already! Instead we will be focussing upon exploring the role it can play to support Parental Engagement initiatives and bridge the growing communications gap between Schools and today’s Parents.

How Do You Use Twitter in Education

I first published this post almost two years ago. You can see the responses were anemic at best. At that time, the most common reason for NOT using Twitter in education was that it was distracting–encouraged the wrong environment for students.

Now, Twitter has become accepted in schools, often a chosen method of communicating with parents. I’ve posted several articles about Twitter in Ed

• How Twitter helps with writing skills
• More about Twitter and writing skills

…but it does so much more. Here are some reasons teachers tell me they use and love Twitter in their classroom:

I Got An Invite to Google+

Thank you, Therese!

I'm sold

I am having so much fun organizing my Google+ circles. I couldn’t get into Facebook because I’m not one of those who exposes my life to the world. Google+ understands me. Anything I post goes only to those I want it to.

20 Common Computer Problems and Solutions (a Third Grader Can Do)

I received a lot of requests for copies of a document I published a year ago, Troubleshooting Common Computer Problems. At the suggestion of Edtech Sandy (aka Sandy Kendell), I tried to upload it through Google Docs to no avail (though it kind of worked in my WordPress.org site) so I’m guessing WordPress.com doesn’t allow Google Docs. Please feel free to disabuse me of that conclusion.

I uploaded instead through my Scribd account. Here is the original document and a different way of displaying the same problems (viewed best in FireFox):

Twitter Buzz On Super Bowl Sunday Ads

Super Bowl XLV has arrived and the internet is ready. You can take a tour of Cowboys Stadium on YouTube using Google Earth:

3 Ways Twitter Makes You a Better Writer

Twitter will make you a better writer

A few months ago, I wrote a post on how Blogs and Wikis make students better writers–teachers too for that matter–and wanted to follow it up with how tweeting improves writing. In the interest of brevity, here are three quick ways:

You learn to be concise.

Twitter gives you only 140 characters to get the entire message across. Letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation and spaces all count as characters on Twitter. Wordiness doesn’t work. Twitter counts every keystroke and won’t publish anything with a minus in front of the word count.

Weekend Website #40: Many Eyes

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes, teachers and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Visual representation using lots of graphical interfaces

Will All Twitter Users Please Twand Up

I use Twitter to stay focused on my particular tech ed interest. Here are some of my thoughts:

• How Do You Use Twitter in Education
• 10 Ways Twitter Makes You a Better Writer
• The Official List of Twitter-friendly Words (for more words like ‘twand’)

I tweet about sites I find on that topic, posts I add to my blogs and questions I have about that. I DON’T Tweet on what I’m having for dinner or who is coming over that evening. I find Twitter:

• gives me a quick rundown of what my colleagues are thinking about
• tells me the top tech ed topics at the moment
• since I don’t link up with anyone other than people serious about my field, I don’t get annoyed by the fluff–there are lots of those people in the Twittersphere

Weekend Website #36: LearnItIn5

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours, too.

Weekend Website #31: Elementary Tech Teachers Ning

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Social Media Explained With Two Maps

I love geeks. Who else could come up with this map?

Map of Online Communities, as seen through the eyes of the xkcd folk

25 Tips for Not-so-Techy Folk

Click on the PowerPoint below (opens in Google docs) and read these 25 tips before the school year starts. I teach tech and still found a few that I’ll be using in my classroom:

What Do You Think of Facebook in Schools?

Social networks dominated by Facebook now account for 22.7 percent of the hours spent in front of a computer, a leap of 43 percent over last year’s figures.

What would you allow in schools?

According to the Neilson Co. report, the shift to social networks for communication caused a precipitous drop in email and instant messaging. Time spent emailing was down 28 percent and instant messaging dropped 15 percent.

If you don’t know what all the social networking stuff is, check out these two YouTube videos. They explain social networking in Plain English.

The question for schools is, how much of this should be let into the education environment. It’s way beyond the internet now. We’re talking about:

• YouTube
• Twitter
• Facebook
• internet access to email

These are all banned at my school. Yet, these are the sites that have kids excited about learning–excited about technology. So what are we doing? We’re cutting off the most effective avenue for keeping students interested in school because we’re afraid of them.

Does that sound right to you?

This column first appeared in my Examiner column © 8-3-10

Weekend Website #15: A Class Wiki

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

My wiki for my fifth grade class

Weekend Website #5: Get Tricky With Wikis

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

The Geek Lifestyle: Can You Relate

Watch the slideshow. Are you there?

How to Use Second Life for Teaching

A growing method of teaching is via simulation, and the leader in that area is Second Life. No longer the life-away-from-your-life it used to be, now it’s the training school of choice for our military, universities and hordes of established businesses. Read more about that here:

• The (Virtual) Reality of Education’s Future
• Is the Virtual World More Real than Life?

Using it for education intrigues me. I’m still researching, trying to figure out if I should take the plunge. Did you know:

Ask a Tech Teacher–A Great Review

It means a lot when a fellow blogger posts kuddos about your site. Rick over at WhatsOnMyPc just did that for me–a great review from his perspective as a fellow lover of Tech. Click here for more info:

Reviewed by a Peer--always the most meaningful

While you’re there, visit Rick’s many great posts on techie stuff from basic to sophisticated.

#100: How to Web 2.0 Accessorize Your Classroom

Web 2.0 is the most exciting thing to happen to education since the schoolhouse. It is a limitless classroom, allowing students access to anything they can define. Includes what’s a digital citizen, how to create a blog, a classroom internet start page, a classroom wiki, how to join social networks and post pictures on Flikr, where to go for podcasting and online docs, and more.

Here’s where you start:

#27: Internet Skills for K-8: Blogs

Create a classroom blog. Show students how to interact on it, answer questions, add their ideas. Include pictures, student schedule, location of your wiki and more

How the World Ranks Your Blog

Part of my job is teaching students effective search tools on the internet. There are many tricks that help students hone in on a topic with relevant, reliable information.

5 Tools for the Teacher’s Technology Toolkit

An example of a Tech Toolkit

Thanks to my colleague, Mr. Steven Anderson, here’s a great Technology Toolkit for teachers (his is in a blog–the one to the side is a workbook sold on Amazon or Scribd)

Most schools and districts spend lot of time and effort trying to get their teachers up to speed on technology and its use/place in the classroom. And honestly that is where a majority of effort should be spent; working with those on the frontlines of instruction. However, rarely, if ever, is much time spent with administrators, working with them on ways they use technology to enhance what they are doing. What can administrators do?

I have put together what I am calling The Administrators Technology Toolkit. (I really should find something more flashy or fun. If you have ideas leave me a comment.) There are some simple, easy to use tools that Administrators can be using right now to, just like teachers, integrate technology into what they do daily.

Tool 1-Twitter
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big advocate for Educators to use Twitter for Professional Development and growth. The job of an Administrator is a tough one. Twitter can serve as a place to connect with other professionals and see whats working in other buildings or districts that might work in yours. There are tons of Asst. Principals, Principals, Superintendents and even a few School Board members that I interact with on a daily basis.

Check out this site for tons of resources on getting started and find a several lists of Twittering Administrators and other Education Professionals created by a great friends of mine, Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal) and Shelly Terrell (@shellterrell).

Tool 2-Google Docs/Forms
Its time to go paperless. Flash Drives and External Hard Drivers are great inventions. I carry at least two of them with me where ever I go. However, neither of them have any documents or presentations on them. I exclusively use Google Docs. Everything I need is there. I honestly don’t remember the last time I opened a Microsoft Office product. Even if I get an attachment I open it in Google Docs because I know I will have access to that document not matter where I am. No need to hunt down a cable or USB port for my drives. I access the Internet and have all my documents.

Part of Google Docs is a great feature called Forms. As an Administrator you are probably constantly giving and recieving feedback from your teachers, parents, colleagues, and community. Again, go paperless. Create a Google Form that instantly captures data and enters it automatically on a spreadsheet for analysis. Having your faculty vote on an important issue? Use the Google Forms. (Then you can create snazzy graphs to impress them at the next meeting!)

Check out this site for some great information on Google Docs. Be sure to watch the “Google Docs In Plain English” and “Principals Talk About Google Docs” videos.

Tool 3-Social Bookmarking
I crave resources. Its part of my job. However, the resources I collect do no good if I don’t share them with anyone. Social Bookmarking services like Diigo and Delicious allow me to share websites, lessons, videos and more with anyone who wants them. Both these services allow you to tag your bookmarks making it even more easy to find the resources you need.

Administrators can use Social Bookmarking in one of two ways. If they are like my good friend Eric, they are constantly on the hunt for teaching resources for their teachers. So Eric spends time searching and sharing and making what he finds available through his Delicious Account. The other way administrators can use them is to just search. Sometimes these Social Bookmarking services can be more efficient at finding what you need than a regular Google Search. Also, you can search your friends’ bookmarks, further enriching the experience.

There are a couple of “must-see” tutorials that I have collected. The first is another In Plain English Video, this time on Social Bookmarking. Either Delicious or Diigo are great for Administrators. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Here is a really good Delicious Tutorial and one for Diigo.

Tool 4-Google Reader
I am willing to bet that there are certain websites you check everyday. Perhaps you even have a blog or two that you read. Instead of wasting time visiting each and every website in the hopes there is a new article or post you can use an RSS reader. What is RSS you ask? Really Simple Service. Basically it is a web address that you insert into a reader so all you need to do is visit one site (your reader) and see whats new on all your favorite sites.

One of the best readers out there is Google Reader. Its easy to navigate and add feeds. There are also lists of feeds that you can add with one click like news, technology and more. A new feature is Suggestions. Once you have subscribed to a few feeds, Google Reader will offer some suggested new feeds for you to check out.

So how do you get started? Well, you need to see yet another In Plain English Video, this time on RSS. Next you will want to see this great Google Reader Tutorial. Lastly, every tech savvy administrator needs some blogs to follow. Here are several great lists:
SupportBlogging Educational Blogs
Moving Forward Educational Blogs
Educational Blogs You Should Be Following

Tool 5-Ning
As I mentioned before it is important for all educators, including Administrators, to create networks of other professionals to connect with. I previously mentioned Twitter. Twitter is great for real-time discussion and resource sharing. However why not take the idea of social networking one step further and enrich the experience with video and file sharing, discussion forums, events and specialty groups. Ning does all that!

Ning bills itself as the social network you create. Nings are very popular among educators because there isn’t lot of the “junk” you will find on other social networking sites. Nings are great because you can really customize the content and you can create private spaces for your school or district.

Of course, I want you to check out the Social Networking In Plain English video to get an idea on how social networking works. Then check out this Ning tutorial for more information on how to sign up and get started. You will also need some Nings to visit. Here are just a few:
Educational Administrators Ning
The Educator’s Personal Learning Network Ning
More Educational Nings

Five tools. That’s it, just five to get started with. Of course that’s not all you will need to become a Tech Savvy Administrator but its a good start.

What do you think? What are some other tools or applications you would recommend for Administrators? Maybe you are already a Tech-Savvy Administrator. What tools do you currently use or what suggestions can you offer?

What are the EU’s Education Issues?

This from the Netherlands. How’d you like if these were the education issues we faced?

Discriminatory Student Grants Land Netherlands in European Court of Justice

Source: European Commission
Published Thursday, 8 October, 2009 – 13:55

The European Commission is taking the Netherlands to the European Court of Justice over a student grant scheme which discriminates against workers from other EU countries and their families. Dutch legislation imposes a residence requirement for grants to study abroad which puts migrant and frontier workers – including those residing in neighbouring Belgium – at a disadvantage compared to nationals.

“Free movement is a founding principle of the EU which ensures people are not discriminated against on the basis of nationality. Grants to study abroad are a social advantage which should be allocated without discrimination to migrant and frontier workers and their children,” said Vladimír Špidla, EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs. “The Netherlands has failed to modify its rules and respect the right to equal treatment so we are now bringing a case before the Court of Justice,” he added. (more)

Social Media–What the Heck is This All About??

Social Media in Plain English

The Official List of Twitter-friendly Words

Cogent and pithy. Many of them come from our ever-neologistic hacker crowd, who loves nounizing verbs and verbizing nouns, to fit the situation. Here they are:

• amazonned–instead of ‘lost a significant chunk of your business to a dot-com’
• animus
• andante–instead of ‘at a walking pace’
• argot–instead of ‘his special vocabulary’
• avatar
• cancelmoose–instead of ‘wage war against spamm’
• canted–instead of ‘slanted’
• cryppie–instead of ‘a hacker who penetrates cryptographic software’
• debbie–instead of ‘someone newer than a newbie’
• edress–instead of ‘electronic addresses, such as your e-mail address or your IM address’
• gonk–instead of ‘embellish the truth beyond reasonable recognition’
• mien–instead of ‘demeanor’
• modicum–instead of ‘slightest bit’
• moxy–instead of ‘courage’
• nadir–instead of ‘the lowest point’
• playground–instead of ‘techie workspace’
• proxy–instead of ‘replacement’
• salmon day–instead of ‘spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end’
• schadenfreude–instead of ‘malicious satisfaction from the misfortunes of others’
• Sitzfleisch–instead of ‘ability to sit patiently for hours doing one thing when you could be doing a million others things’
• Sorrel–instead of ‘reddish brown color’
• sprachgefhl–instead of ‘an intuitive understanding of language’
• supinate–instead of ‘rotate hand or foot so palm or sole is upward’
• tarradiddle–instead of ‘a petty falsehood’
• tech neck–instead of ‘sore neck from sitting in front of a computer all day’
• termagant–instead of ‘a scolding, nagging, bad-tempered woman’
• triskaidekaphobia–instead of ‘morbid fear of number 13′
• vestigial–instead of ‘not fully developed’
• vulcan nerve pinch–instead of ‘keyboard commands that tax the hand’s ability to reach all appropriate keys’
• xerophyte–instead of ‘a plant that will thrive in desert conditions’
• Zeitgeist–instead of ‘spirit of the time’
• zenith–instead of ‘the point directly above the observer’

You want to have Excel count the letters in a word for you? All you need is a LEN formula:

=LEN (cell with word in it)

I love Excel.