Warning: I took a lot of notes, sorry! The session was too
good.
Under 18: Blogs, Wikis and Online Social Networkin Sites for Youth
11:30 CST
Speakers:
Andrea Forte, Georgia Institute of Technology (moderator)
danah boyd,
Anastasia Goodstein, Publisher, Ypulse
Kate Raynes-Goldie, TakingITGlobal
Erin Reilly, Exec Dir, Platform Shoes Forum
Elisabeth Sylvan, Researcher, MIT Media Laboratory
87% of teens 12-17 online, 80% of parents online, 54% of
American families filter
1) in
constant moral danger
2) fulfilling
their inner potention
neither is reality, somewhere in the middle
going to high school. 1930’s during depression, made teens go to high school to
stop competition for jobs for older men. Created age segregation where young
men were initiated when they entered older age segments. Now teens are mainly
exposed to only other teens. “Teenager” became a marketing term by 1941.
Marketing shifted towards age groups. 1950’s went to a movie that was meant for
“you” not for all society. 1960’s started legislating to keep kids away form
adult spaces. 1980’s curfews. Everything young people did was terrible and we
needed to keep them away from adults. The internet allows for people who are
trapped in their homes to escape.
“If you’re not on myspace, you don’t exist” – Skyler Sierra
from Kathy Sierra’s blog
Kids can now be tracked (searched for), replicability
(anything copy/pasted), recognizability (no one knows who anyone is online).
Erin Reilly: created safe online space for girls who are
interested in science, engineering, technology. Knew it had to be online social
networking to engage the kids. Zoe’s room is the name of the space. Creating
mobile device – the more they are active, the more power their online avatar
has.
Elisabeth Sylvan: building inspiring tools for kids. Blocks
are great, how would you digitally enhance blocks for older kids to make
sculpture, sculpture that moves, programming, etc? Want to make kids realize
their dreams with tools made available to them. Computer Clubhouse – over 100
physical centers around the world where kids can create whatever they like with
computers in a mentored environment. Ex: make portraits of themselves,
designing video games. Mentors encourage them to create what they want to
create, different than learning in schools. Shows them how technology can be a
part of their lives. All Clubhouses share an intranet site where great
cross-cultural interactions take place.
Other community she works with: Scratch. (built on top of
Squeak). Visual programming environment, very easy to use. Easy to introduce to
adults as well. Can make games, interactive stories, make artwork. Online space
where kids can post projects, download code, leave comments, etc.
Kate Raynes-Goldie: Online community for young activists. Do
a lot of offline engagement as well. Created 5 years ago, before Facebook,
MySpace. Designed by youth for youth, a key to our success. How can we engage
teens online before alienating teachers and lawmakers? Online discussion
boards, profiles, etc just like other sites. But also using to inform
themselves to learn about issues, organize protests and dialogues, participate
in national and international decision making. We were founded before the moral
panic around social networking so that is a new challenge for us. They have
another version of their website designed to be used in the classroom. We
educate teachers and schools about how to use our tools and how to use the
internet safely. Have to counter huge mass-media machine that takes a few
incidents and makes the Internet look like an awful place. The ed site is more
teachery-looking, pastel colors, etc. Trying to strike a fine balance between
adult acceptance and student interest. Adults generally don’t get what kids are
about which creates a lack of what kids need. Kids who should be mentoring kids
generally don’t know enough about the internet. Generally end up with spaces
that marginalize youth and are oppressive.
Anastasia Goodstein: I blog about generation Y info for
media professionals. Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing
Online. Her new book for adults to learn about youth online behavior.
Parents often glaze over when talking about tech. Need to talk parents down and
explain that teens are really just socializing online, looking for validation.
Usually with friends, sometimes with strangers. They are getting their
education online. When teens have Internet taken away the thing they miss most
is being able to do homework research, not e-mail, IM etc (she cited
Nickelodeon study). Identity creation is a big part of their development, and
much of what they are doing online with identities, avatars, etc. You can’t
legislate good behavior. There are issues we need to deal with. You can’t solve
this with technology (filters, etc). The main way to work on this is through
dialogue. Parents are afraid because their kids know more than them, they don’t
know what to say. We need to create the dialogue so that parents can be closer
to their kids and know more about what they are doing in their lives.
Andrea Forte: “Wikis scare the hell out of high school
teachers.” A completely open environment is hard to line up with standard
assessment practices. Wikipedia: young people have an opportunity to contribute
to something legitimate. We need to bring young people into adult conversations
in a legitimate fashion.
Three questions from moderator: Q1: What exactly are young
people getting out of their lives online? Q2: What is reality when it comes to
dangers for young people online? Q3: What kinds of social, tech/design
solutions are there once we identify experiences we want to facilitate and/or
prevent?
dana boyd: DOPA – legislation, Deleting Online Predators
Act. Not what it sounds like. Bans all minors from all social technologies in
schools and libraries – Yahoo groups, Neopets, Wikipedia (exception for
non-profits, but Wikia, Wiki news), MySpace and all the like. Not banned at
home. Moving from digital divide problem to participatory divide problem –
private vs. public schools. Most teens ignore strangers; the ones who don’t are
the kids who aren’t doing so well – there are a lot of these kids. The online
world isn’t so different than the offline world that way, but it is a problem
because the kids are doing poorly. What if we put social workers on MySpace?
Instead of blame the tech, realize they are people regardless of technology. If
we took care of the people, the technology wouldn’t matter.
Erin Reilly: cyberbullying (especially with girls) is the
greater problem, not online predators. It always goes back to education. Rural
community workshop: 25 tween girls, none of them knew what a pedophile was. We
must be educating them.
Anastasia Goodstein: Plagiarism and cheating is a major new
problem. Texting under your hoodie. Big need for educators to teach kids about
finding credible sources, about plagiarism, etc. Students using personal
statement form other students to apply for schools.
Erin Reilly: media literacy was a big focus. Now we need to
teach cyberethics. Even if my school blocks IM, if I can get around it, it
doesn’t hurt anyone. Kids need to understand rules.
Kate Raynes-Goldie: just like the drug wars, banning doesn’t
work. Have to teach people.
Elisabeth Sylvan: I work with 10-18 year olds. 10 year olds
have much different understanding than 18 year olds. Need to differentiate
between ages when talking about online safety. Online communities should have
methods for young people to alert someone when something hurts them.
dana boyd: strange narrative: I was always allowed to talk
to shopkeepers, or teachers on the first day. Strangers are those characters in
your life that have no role, because anyone who has a role is not stranger.
Online, I only talked to strangers. Where do I go to college, what is going on
in the Gulf War, etc. What are we losing by saying no strangers online. What is
trust is the real question? How do we teach that? Talking to a stranger about
the
war online is much different than meeting them for sex, right? Most bullying is
offline, not online. The online has shifted the architecture, so what is
possible is different. Why do teenagers break up on MySpace? No he-said,
she-said game. Very clear to the public what happened and what was said. Then
they “delete” each other.
My comment to myself: this session is fantastic! So many
thoughts running through my head.
Kate Raynes-Goldie: Young women are expected to dress that
way. It is a reflection of society that our girls are posting racy pictures. We
need to look at what kind of societal values we are developing.
Anastasia Goodstein: we’ve democratized bullying. Anyone can
create a fake persona, anyone can steal a password.
dana boyd: we’ve moved it to a specific cyber-ethics and
forgot about the core ethics. Adults online dating are meeting strangers.
Elisabeth Sylvan : We tend to want to put things on schools.
I think that is unfair. There is a lot of stuff that schools already have to
deal with. Some teachers can deal with cyberethics and some are trying to
figure out how to use PowerPoint in the one hour they have to teach a lesson.
Anastasia Goodstein: shy kids are being empowered, a huge
benefit. Kids who don’t raise their hands in class can blog, post to boards,
etc. Harris Interactive study recently showed that offline + online friendships
deepens those friendships. Adds a new layer to teen friendship.
Kate Raynes-Goldie: Kids can access communities that they
might not have access to: queer, transgender, etc.
Q: are kids more media literate?
dana boyd: No, kids haven’t learned HTML. They copy/paste or
someone designed it for them. They don’t know how to navigate to a website,
they know how to Google it.
My comment: Unbelievable women on this panel. When the
podcast comes out I highly recommend this for ed tech folks and parents. I am
going to try and get at least a couple of these women on 21st
Century Learning.
technorati tags:education, sxsw, sxswi, NYCIST, teens, tweens, safety, myspace, facebook, social, social networking, online, culture, Andrea Forte, danah boyd, Anastasia Goodstein, Kate Raynes-Goldie, Erin Reilly, Elisabeth Sylvan
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