Lil' Techies

Tori Spelling (actress, reality TV star) has opened a Twitter account for her 3-year old. She is actually getting a lot of grief for this, possibly because she has made it available to the public (and the fact that he is not actually writing the tweets, but they are written in his name).

I think it’s a great idea–kids are so funny at that age and documenting their cuteness never hurt anyone! Beyond that, I started to think of how Twitter could be useful for older children in a controlled and parent-monitored environment.

• An account for kids would have to be kept “private”.
• The email address given to Twitter would have to be a parent’s address so that “follow” requests could be monitored.
• If grandma, grandpa, mom or dad are also using Twitter, the followers could be limited to these people.
• To keep the child’s interest, followers would need to be supportive, such as responding to their tweets and writing directly to the child.

Possible Concerns

• The trending topics might not always be age-appropriate
• Spammers could still @ your child’s account
• Hackers

I’m a little late in the game, but finally had my first experience with the parenting social network Circle of Moms on Facebook and becoming a fan of another child’s page on Child Space. This app/website  has been out for over a year and has almost 8 million members!

From my experience using this app/webiste, I think the attraction is in the sense of security (you create your child’s network, rather than posting to all your Facebook friends) the site offers moms who want to post about their kids. This app only lets other moms join the circle (‘moms’ as in Facebook users who’s profiles declare them female).

The interesting thing is that while this network is for mom’s only, it was created by 2 single guys, Mike Greenfield and Ephraim Luft.

The National Literacy Trust in the UK  released a report that explores how our kids think about writing. One of the research questions in this report probes the issue about technology damaging literacy. I’ve heard many instructors complain about texts and tweets as a direct cause for poor writing skills. The results are inconclusive, but it looks like tech writing is actually good for literacy:

• 82% of kids send text messages at least once a month
• 77% of kids still use pen and paper to take notes in class
• Young people who write a blog were more likely to enjoy writing
• Young people with social networking sites write more frequently
• There is a link between texting and literacy achievement
• Today’s kids type faster than any other generation

The most fascinating results of this study indicate that the more technology kids use for writing, the better they feel about their writing abilities.

Clark, C. & Dugdale, G. (2009). Young people’s writing: Attitudes, behaviour and the role of technology. National Literacy Trust. Retrieved from http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/research/Writing_survey_2009.pdf.