Are Teens Struggling to Communicate in Real Time?

Students' reliance on digital devices may be weakening their face-to-face communication skills, Louisville, Ky. teacher Paul Barnwell writes in an article in The Atlantic. After observing his high-school English class struggle to hold conversations, Barnwell realized "that conversational competence might be the single-most overlooked skill we fail to teach students." He suggests focusing on sharpening students’ ability to move back and forth between the digital and real world is a must. He also quotes Sherry Turkle, a psychologist, MIT professor, and the author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Ourselves, who wrote in a New York Times column, “Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits … we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions. We dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters.” 

Terms of Service and Modeling Responsible Behavior

Terms of service are an interesting problem for teachers, students, and parents. The terms of service for many online tools popular for educators to assign to students require users to be 13 years or older, but that part seems to be forgotten sometimes when teachers are assigning useful tools to younger students. As Jennifer Carey, a director of academic technology at the Ransom Everglades School in Florida points out in a blog post, just forgetting about these terms of service – just giving them a “wink and a nod”- can model behaviors that run contrary to the advice parents and teachers give kids about other kinds of sites that also require users to be 13 or older. In her post, Carey advises teachers to read and understand the terms before asking students to sign up for services that may violate federal statutes that regulate student information. "Anytime you are considering an online tool or service, it's important to ensure that the security of your students plays a key role in your decision," Carey writes. Parents also need to pay attention to the tools their children are being asked to use.

Why What You Do in the Real World Matters on Facebook

A pair of studies by researchers at the University of Colorado-Denver explored the ways in which people break connections with one another on Facebook. They found that high-school friends, acquaintances, and co-workers are particularly vulnerable to being "unfriended," and not always for the content posted. "We found that people often unfriend co-workers for their actions in the real world rather than anything they post on Facebook," one researcher said.

When a Free App For Kids Isn’t Really Free

Most free apps have a way of making money – and that is not always good for parents and kids. So, how can you find the best free apps for kids? Read Jinny Gudmundsen’s take on the question and find out when free really does mean free and how to find those apps.

Online Grade Books Create Stress

Online grade books are meant to provide convenient, real-time access to grades for both parents and students, but as we have written about in this blog before, features such as e-mail alerts when grades drop below a certain level can lead to parental hovering and student anxiety. Parents and students also worry when grades aren’t posted as quickly as they think they should be. Some administrators also worry that all parents may not have the technology or know-how to participate, with one reading teacher in Florida reporting that fewer than 35% of her students' parents have logged into her online grade book. Does your school have an online grade book system? How often do you use it? Do you find it relieves or adds stress at home with your children?

Personal Data Breaches Reported Expanding

A new study by Pew Research found that 18 percent of American adults with Internet access have reported that their personal information was stolen in a data breach. That's up from 11 percent who reported the same last July. And, this is serious personal information being taken here -- such as Social Security and credit card numbers and banking information. The percentage of those reporting a breach of their e-mail, social media, or other online accounts held steady at 21 percent in both years. Of course, this survey was done before the Heartbleed bug was discovered making all Web surfers wonder whether they should change their passwords to prevent theft of their email accounts, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information.

Social Media Not Influencing TV Watching As Much as Hyped

The Nielsen-backed Council for Research Excellence has found that the vast majority of people watching prime-time TV are NOT using social media at the same time, even though that is what the folks at Twitter and Facebook would like us all to believe. Only 16.1% of viewers said they took part in "second screening" through mobile devices and laptops, with 11.4% posting to Facebook and 3.3% to Twitter. Also, social media prompted just 6.8% of respondents to check out a new show.

When ‘Liking” Means You Have Voided Your Right To Sue

Many little ones love Cheerios, but might downloading a coupon for the product void your legal rights? General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.

Instead, anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site.

Is this a new trend? Other companies besides General Mills are going in this direction. Big food companies are concerned about the growing number of consumers filing class-action lawsuits against them over labeling, ingredients, and claims of health threats. Almost every major gathering of industry executives has at least one session on fighting litigation. Of course, you have to wonder if this will spill over into individual cases. Will it be that you can’t claim cyberbullying if someone you have friended on Facebook starts harassing you?

Some Apps Aren’t for Kids

The truth is that not all apps are for kids. The recent Yik Yak (the anonymous sharing app) debacle is proof of that, as things got so bad that the app makers have now made plans to shut down the app’s access at middle and high schools in the US.

So how should you manage apps with your kids? Take a look at the ideas in Not all Apps are for Kidsfor some common sense approaches including disabling the ability to install new apps on Apple devices, using Restrictions for younger kids, or trying an app monitoring service like AppCertain or Mobicip.

Essential Social Media Rules

Taking stock of what more you should be doing to keep your kids safe on social media? Take a look at these 8 Essential Facebook Rules for Teens to find out if you have covered all of the basics. We all need a little reassurance every now and then that there isn’t anything that we’ve missed.