At Freyberg High School in New Zealand, Principle Michael McMenamin thinks text messaging and cell phones are a “neat way of communicating”.

In the article School Harnesses Power of Texting, Mr. McMenamin said “the advantages of cellphones far outweigh the disadvantages.”

However, he doesn’t provide us with his list of pros and cons. I would have liked to have seen them.

Freyberg High School is embracing text messaging.

Principal Michael McMenamin wants to send students text messages to tell them how pleased he is at something they have done or maybe to tell them to pick up litter.

“It would be a really neat way of communicating. I want to use it in a positive way,” he said.
…
Mr McMenamin said the advantages of cellphones far outweigh the disadvantages.

But the article does go on to talk about plenty of of disadvantages as told by other school leaders and experts:

Text messages are believed to be at the centre of a fight between students at Palmerston North Boys’ High School and Awatapu College earlier this month. Between 50 and 100 texts were sent between the two groups of boys. Text messages were allegedly used to make rape and death threats and organise fights.

…cellphones are misused by teenagers and too many use them as a glorified toy. He said students use text messages to say things they wouldn’t say face to face…

A survey of 1500 secondary school students, carried out by the Internet Safety Group, found 73 percent had a mobile phone and 23 percent had received an offensive, pornographic, abusive, or threatening text or picture.

Some 46 percent of those students admitted also sending abusive messages.
…
Some young people lead another life through text messages, but parents either choose to ignore it or are naive about the technology, Mr O’Connor said.
…
Mr O’Connor said it is difficult for schools to manage cellphone use, because adolescents will always try to be one step ahead.

Palmerston North Girls’ High School deputy principal Marie Gordon said an average of 35 cellphones are confiscated from girls each week.
…
“They’re addicted to it. When the phones are confiscated, you’d swear that life was going to come to an end. It’s their form of communication,” Mrs Gordon said.

Did you hear any advantages mentioned? Neither did I. So I’m puzzled as to why Principal McMenamin is so enamored with the technology. Why can’t praise be given face to face? Does he really think kids want to be nagged on their cell phones about picking up litter?

Finally:

Parents are reluctant for Girls’ High to ban the phones during the day because they want to keep in touch with their daughters.

Parents need to get a grip! I went into more detail of why parents who want to be in touch with their kids via cell phone around the clock are a bit misguided, in a previous entry, so I won’t get into it here.

So would you send your kids to Freyberg High?

Posted: March 31st, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

Common Sense Media is a family friendly entertainment guide. They have reviews of movies, television shows, video games, music, and books on their site and members can also provide their own ratings and reviews.

They are offering a chance to win 6 months of Netflix in a drawing. You just have to fill out a short survey to be entered into the drawing. I’m not sure how long the offer will stand so take the survey now (you’ll see the link on their home page).

Posted: March 30th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

What is it that I love most about blogs? Through blogs, I learn about technology, politics, current events, software development, living, and marketing. Blogs give me timely information and opinion, and they put me in touch with experts who can get their information published and delivered to me quickly and inexpensively.

What I love most about blogs is that they are a form of education for me. People are sharing knowledge for free.

It’s only natural to use them more directly in education: Teacher-hosted blogs, for the students.

They can supplement classroom teaching. Teacher’s blogs can tie the classroom learning to current events and can reference other teacher’s blogs to share or reuse knowledge. Teachers can communicate assignments and deadlines to students. Teachers can open up discussions with students, keeping them engaged beyond the limits of the school day.

Teachers can also keep parents engaged by opening up lines of communication about the happenings in the classroom with the parents in a more timely fashion, on a more regular basis.

Thanks to John Jantsch for pointing out a small handful of teacher’s blogs and for stoking this thought in my head.

However, I am actually disappointed in the blogs that he points out. Most of them aren’t very educational. One appears to be a place for the teacher to post about assignments. Another points to interesting things that are somewhat educational. The rest of them are simply teachers talking about their lives (pictures of their kid, whining about bad kids and neglectful parents and school systems, pointers to random things on the Internet that interest them, but aren’t educational.)

What I’d love to see are teachers that are passionate about what they teach — sharing that passion with their students and using blogs as a teaching tool. That is where the great potential is.

What do you think? Leave a comment and, if you know of a teacher blog that is truly educational, leave a comment with the URL.

Posted: March 26th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 3

iPods are being banned in a Sydney, Australia school,

because they “enable students to avoid communication with others” and may lead to “social isolation or escape from our community.”

Thanks to Engadget for this one.

Posted: March 24th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

Common Sense Media, is a sharp looking site and offers some really helpful content to concerned parents who wish to keep an eye on their kids media consumption.

They have reviews of Movies, TV shows, Games, Music, Websites and Books and they also let registered users (presumably parents like yourself) rate and recommend items as well.

What do you think about it, and do you know of other sites that are similar? Leave a comment here!

Posted: March 24th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2

A friend of mine works as a Respiratory Care Practitioner at the Pulmonary Function Lab at Yale-New Haven Hospital. I recently told him about the Families and Technology blog, and a few days later he related this story to me:

At my lab, we ran a test on a 13-year-old boy who was becoming quite short of breath while playing soccer. His parents also noted that it took quite some time before he seemed to catch his breath. They did the whole cardiac work up and then we exercised him in our lab. Well, his heart rate went up, as we expected, but took quite some time to come back down to baseline. This young lad didn’t have an ounce of fat of him. (I wish I could claim the same)…

It was determined that he was completely out of shape. And if you think about it… We have a generation of video game and computer users, and handheld games involved in these kids’ lives. The result is that these kids have well-developed fingers and typing skills, but are (for the lack of a better word) Computer Chair Potatoes… Children today have to get away from the video screen and do some fun outdoor activity.

According to the mom, this kid, who’s on the soccer team and not fat, plays a lot of video games. Despite appearing to be in shape, he was significantly out of shape for what a 13-year-old should be.

Just because your kids don’t appear to be fat or unhealthy, don’t ignore the affects that hours in front of screens will have them. When previous generations were kids — before cable, computers, and video games — we spent more time outside and on our feet, moving around and doing things.

Posted: March 23rd, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1

ComputerTime is always available from SoftwareTime for a FREE 14-day Trial.

But with all the talk about the Kaiser Family Foundation report that kids spend on average 6.5 hours a day with media, we were alarmed, as were most parents that I talked to.

So SoftwareTime is offering ComputerTime… the full version, NOT the trial version, for FREE for a limited time. Go to the SoftwareTime home page and click on the Free Solution link in the news box on the top right of the page. This is only valid through March 31, 2005

Posted: March 21st, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

Welcome DadTalk Readers!

On DadTalk, Brett Levy Covers the Generation M report also, with his own insights.

I have been enjoying Brett’s blog posts for quite some time now and suggest that you frequent his blog like I do. I have learned much from the stories that he’s published there, many of which might have slipped under my radar had he not brought them to my attention and shared his insightful thoughts with us. Topics relating to families, parenting, education, technology, dad’s rights are covered there.

Posted: March 13th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1

Speaking with Dr. Jane Healy this morning, author of the fabulous book Failure to Connect, she brought to my attention a study just released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In the study, they examine the amount, and types of media our kids are using these days. They found that kids:

… are spending an increasing amount of time using “new media” like computers, the Internet and video games …

They raise some interesting questions:

• broad societal issues - what does it mean for the nature of childhood? or to interpersonal and familial connections?
• health concerns - what about the impact of ever more graphic sex and violence? or the link to childhood obesity?
• issues of cognitive development - can new media offer educational content in an appealing and effective format? or do they distract from more substantive pursuits such as reading and homework?.
• Do media stifle or inspire creativity in young people? Empower or disenfranchise them?
• Offer powerful tools for health education, or model unhealthy habits?

All questions we as concerned parents should be seeking answers to for the well being of our children. The Foundation has discovered:

Young people today live media-saturated lives, spending an average of nearly 6 1/2 hours a day (6:21) with media.

Wow - 6 1/2 hours per day! That’s 40% of the time in a day they are awake! The study goes on to state:

This generation is largely happy and well-adjusted, but those who are least content or get the poorest grades spend more time with video games and less time reading than their peers.

However, for me, here’s the scariest part:

Despite the concerns parents express about the impact of media on their children, this study does not find much evidence of major efforts on their part to curb or monitor their children’s media consumption. The majority of young people say their parents don’t impose any rules on them regarding their use of tv, video games, music, or computers.

They conclude with:

The sheer amount of time young people spend using media … makes it plain that the potential of media to impact virtually every aspect of young people’s lives cannot be ignored. … Anything that takes up this much space in young people’s lives deserves our full attention.

It’s time for us parents to take action and set some limits on these kids!

Posted: March 9th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

A little over a week ago, I blogged about letting kids blog. I suggested:

Parental involvement is key here. Communicate with your kids, explain the risks, and keep a watchful eye. Let your kids blog about things other than themselves perhaps?

NetFamilyNews has a story of one dad working with his daughter to make her a safer blogger.

Posted: March 4th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1