Some form of privacy regulation is inevitable, in Boyd’s view. Yet she also cautions that once enacted, laws are difficult to repeal. One example is the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which Congress is considering renewing. The law restricts websites from collecting data from anyone under 13 years old. As an unintended consequence, said Boyd, parents now coach their kids to lie about their age so they can visit the Skype website to video chat with their grandparents.
danah boyd, one of my go-to people when it comes to kids online, is featured in the Boston Globe's technology section. They mention her upcoming book (which I can't wait to read) and some of the issues she'll be covering including busting myths about kids and online realities. We are so in need of that with all of the fears that are swirling around out there.
Some things I am thinking about:
What do parents and schools really need to be concerned about?
What is the best way to educate our kids for safe, healthy lives online?
Is there any trustworthy research out there that we can rely on?
Thanks, @zephoria for keeping young people's best interests at heart.
MoveOn has created a graphic that shows what parts of your profile are public, whether you like it or not. Helpful visual. The Facebook fan page to connect to is ironic, but may be helpful in lobbying Facebook. Maybe.
As usual the New York Times provides an elegant summary via an infographic - in this case, of Facebook's privacy options. If you're a Facebook user, you've probably stumbled through much of this before, but I bet you haven't seen it all! Sadly, I think I have in my quest to remain somewhat private in parts of my online footprint.
Coming soon, my guide on how to wean yourself from Facebook's grip
I had a great conversation with our 7th and 8th graders about formspring a few weeks ago, which I blogged about here. I thought that the article by Rachel Simmons was pretty poor. She starts with, “Last week, a Long Island high school senior committed suicide, and the website Formspring.me is suspected as a cause.” She links to an article which says just the opposite! See these quotes from the article she linked to:
“Alexis' parents downplayed the Internet role, saying their daughter was in counseling before she ever signed up with formspring.me, a new social site, where many of the attacks appeared.”
"I believe in my heart that cyberbullying wasn't the cause of Lexi's death," said her mother, Paula Pilkington. "This is a mistake."
It also didn’t recognize what the site is capable of in a positive way. For instance, I purchased a new dining table that is unfinished wood, and wasn’t sure how best to treat it. So, I went to this wonderful design bloggers website and asked her a question about wood treatment via her formspring. She replied to me within an hour. Problem solved. By an expert. There is a place for every technology tool, and there’s a poor way to use all of them, too. That’s what parents and students have to negotiate.
The bigger issue here is talking to students about “anonymous” behavior on the Internet, and what it entails. I gave the girls a guiding principle that anonymous places on the Internet tend to encourage bad behavior and discourage good behavior. We want them to learn that lesson because formspring will be passé tomorrow (it actually sort of already is), and they have to be able to apply the same principles to the next new thing.
Rachel Simmon's gut instinct reaction and advice to parents is summed up in her point:
So what to do? Here’s what I suggest. Start a conversation with your daughter about Formspring. Ask her if people at school use it (don’t start off by grilling her about what she does or she may scare and fly away). Ask her what she thinks of it. Then ask her if she uses it.
If she says yes, tell her she’s banned for life from the website. Period.
This completely misses the mark. If you think you can solve problems by banning use, you're in for real trouble when kids experience the same problems in new venues - they won't tell you when they stumble into a mess for fear that you'll ban them from it. Prepare them for the world they are living in. Teach them about how it works. Set family expectations and guidelines. Connecting the tragedy of a girl with serious psychological issues to a website is hyperbole, and won't get you very far in setting your kids up for success.
Ms. Simmons, if you're reading, I'd love to talk to you more about this.
This comes on the heels of a wonderful meeting I had at school with my admissions, development, archives, business, marketing, communications and other team members discussing our social media strategy. Tomorrow I meet with our academic leadership from the head of school to the lower school head to the academic dean. The conversations have been wonderful and we've been grappling with what the right use is for us.
Watch this video to see an articulate, clear presentation on the possibilities:
Our 7/8th grade Dean asked me to meet with students today to discuss the website Formspring.me. We wanted to respond to student and parent concerns about how our students were using the website. If you're not familiar with it, here is how it works: a person sets up an account with a name of their choice, say "Alison Q." People can then go to Alison Q's Formspring page and ask her a question. The tricky part is they can ask the question "anonymously" if they want to. I put that in quotes because Internet anonymity is more of a myth than are reality. Then, Alison can answer the question if she wants, or delete it. All of this takes place in the very public location of Alison's Formspring page. Formspring can also be embedded onto a Facebook profile page.
Students use the site in a variety of ways including: to say things they normally wouldn't, to bully anonymously or not, to make false claims about themselves, to be silly, or just to ask age-appropriate questions.
I led a discussion on the following points:
defining Formsping
looking at how it technically works - Formspring server exchanges data with your computer
how there is a search right on the front page where anyone can look for your Formspring page (see image)
how sites like Google and Archive.org are indexing websites like Formspring - talking about how "deleting" is more of a myth than a reality
how data posted online becomes part of students online reputation - similar to offline reputation, but indexed by Google and around "forever"
how to delete Formspring data - looked at FAQ page on deleting which has been looked at by many thousands of users (see image). Then looked at how page can never be deleted, only disabled. Also looked at fact that any questions asked by you can never be deleted. Bad decisions in that regard cannot be rectified via the website.
Talk about in-school expectations - reviewed middle school handbook, acceptable use policy - and how we expect our students to use the Internet in school for school purposed. We expect our students to treat each other with respect and use appropriate language.
Some observations:
being honest about how a site technically works is important
students want to believe they can be anonymous online - they argue to suggest that they are
discussing transparency of the Internet is essential
online reputation is a construct that students can relate to - they want to have a positive reputation
7th and 8th grade is an appropriate time to be grappling with this - don't ban the technology, help them understand the implications of their decision
not making it disciplinary, but making it explanatory helps them recognize and make their own decisions
I'd love to hear back on suggestions or on how you are helping your students understand this new social tool.
On a side note: we thought it might be entertaining to set up teacher Formspring accounts where students could ask us questions about their work/area of study. So questions like "What is the different between aerobic and anaerobic respiration?"
You can disable your account by going to Settings > Disable Account and clicking on "Yes, Disable my Account". You can restore your account later if you choose.
All traces of your profile page and questions users have asked you will disappear. Questions you have asked others will still appear, as there is no way to ever delete a question you have asked another user. Only that user can delete it.
I was reading How Privacy Vanishes Online in the New York Times which shows how computer systems can now analyze even seemingly anonymous data to get quite an accurate idea of who you are when a parent of a student asked how she could delete her daughter's formspring account. If you work in a school and haven't heard of formspring, you will soon, so get ready. Anyway, I looked up the answer to her question and came upon the FAQ response above. Wow, what a great lesson for students to read: "Questions you have asked others will still appear, as there is no way to ever delete a question you have asked another user." There is real confusion over what "anonymous" means online, and what "delete" means. For all intents and purposes, I'd argue that neither are a realistic option when online, so consider that the next time you're pressing 'send' or 'post.'
Also given to me recently was the news that there is a new mashup out there mapping Chat Roulette ("anonymous" video chatting) users. It's pretty scary that now your image and your location can be mapped for the world to find you. More on this at Mashable. Here's a previous post of mine on Chat Roulette, for context.
THATCamp is a humanities and technology "unconference" at George Mason University near Washington, DC. It seems like a great opportunity to involve history and English teachers in. The applications, however, are due today, March 15, 2010. Even if you can't make this year's conference, keep it on your calendar for next year.
On a side note, have any of you attended before? Do you recommend it?
In an unsurprising article an old media institution which is slowly withering away (the newspaper) discusses how a law school has to ban laptops in their classrooms because students aren't listening to the lectures.
"This is like putting on every student's desk, when you walk into class, five different magazines, several television shows, some shopping opportunities and a phone, and saying, 'Look, if your mind wanders, feel free to pick any of these up and go with it,' " [Professor] Cole said."
I can't see how this is any different than these future-lawyers desks are going to be. They'll be in their offices, having to do work, with a computer, Internet access, cell phones, desk phones, e-mail, instant messenger, Skype, etc, all available for their perusal.
Shouldn't law schools being teaching future lawyers how to minimize distraction, use modern tools to be better lawyers (like writing a collaborative brief via Google Docs), and embrace what modern technology has done for the legal field? Or perhaps the bigger problem is the modern legal field isn't moving to take advantage of the opportunities. My sense is that the field is, but the educational institutions training the new lawyers aren't.
I can't believe how unwilling educators are to change their practice. You've got to get to where your kids are, or you'll be irrelevant.
My head of school passed Rachel Simmons' blog post, 
