An Analog Week

It was a crisis of major proportion. My daughter left her iPhone at her Dad's house and had to survive the week without her "baby." It was awful. We seriously considered a methadone clinic for the severe withdrawal symptoms. It had to be announced on Facebook.

So, you can imagine the excitement at my house when the iPhone was finally returned this evening. As it flickered back to life after a 5 minute charge, the pings accelerated with increasing frequency. What had she missed....in the day it took her to alert all her friends that she was untethered?
17 Snapchats
12 Texts
0 phone calls
and too many Facebook updates and Instagrams to count.

 I knew Snapchat was a hit with teens but I  had no idea that it had become the dominant social network on mobile.

For those unfamiliar with Snapchat, it's a mobile app which kids use to “chat” with friends using photos (or videos) with captions. Sort of like texting with pictures.  The sender can choose how long the message will be visible -- up to 10 seconds -- before it self-destructs.

It's been getting a bad rap as a medium for sexting so I reminded my daughter; "No T&A shots please. Remember Anthony Wiener"  She rolled her eyes and said: "Mom, that was so 7th Grade."

Prom Dress Angst Relieved

With all the web concern these days swirling around teen bullying and sexual harassment issues, social networks have at least made some progress on relieving one great teen angst:  “Is somebody else going to be wearing my dress at the prom?”

Perils of Teen Sexting

A sobering story about the widespread damage created when a teen girl texted a nude picture to a new boyfriend. Moms and Dads - share this with your digitally active teens.
A Girl's Nude Photo, and Altered Lives

Can Technology Humanize Teaching?

This TED Talk by the founder of the Khan Academy blew my mind for two reasons. It has given me an incredible online resource for helping my daughter with math homework. (I've been woefully inadequate  since 5th grade when the curriculum surpassed me.)  But even more amazing is that, with all the educational experts in America, it's taken a hedge fund guy to invent a new educational paradigm. Using YouTube, no less!

Salman Khan at TED

Here's the story in a nutshell. Salman Khan, living in Boston started tutoring his cousins living in New Orleans, remotely. As a supplement, he started posting video tutorials on YouTube as something they could refer back to. To his chagrin, his cousins told him that they preferred him on YouTube than in person. Kahn quickly understood the real lesson in this: they could learn at their own pace (stop, pause or fast forward) and didn't have someone breathing down their neck asking: "Do you get it?" all the time.

Too Young for Facebook

I'm so glad we haven't let our 12 year old onto Facebook yet although she'll probably be driving before she's 16.
Facebook Users Who Are Underage Raise Concerns

Foursquare for Homework?

I just attended a talk by the co-founder/CEO of Foursquare - Dennis Crowley - who happens to look like Justin Bieber's older brother and is probably just as wealthy. For those not familiar, Foursquare is a location based social network that allows users to "check in" at various venues - bars, restaurants, the gym - and keep track of their friends' whereabouts. Users who check-in often can earn free drinks and other prizes and the person who checks in most frequently at any particular venue earns the title of Mayor.

The Techno Nag

In the 4 weeks my daughter was at sleep-away camp I received exactly two letters in the mail. I wasn’t sure how she would survive the no-technology policy at camp but it turns out that she survived pretty well. I’m the one that suffered from withdrawal.

Buzz: The Saga Continues

When Ruby saw that I had joined her Buzz network she wasn't happy.
“Stay out of my life.”
“But I’m dong research for my blog.”
“Go and practice on another kid then. You’re ruining my life!”

The Buzz on Buzz

I’m still persona non grata in my household after deactivating my 11-year old’s Facebook account but I’m beginning to think that I needn’t have bothered. It seems that Facebook is losing some ground to Buzz - Google’s latest foray into social networking. Ruby and her friends are swarming all over it. 

Homework Helper

It started innocuously enough with the back-to-school supply list for 5th Grade. It had only one item – a USB flash drive. “What a great idea,” I thought. “Ruby could transfer homework back and forth between home and school computers and, unless we inherited a dog like Marley, the classic ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse could never apply.”