Blissfully Unaware Presentation
Blissfully Unaware presentation, revised April 2008 by Michelle K. Baldwin.
Session Topic:
Adults call it “Social Networking.” Kids say “it’s what we do.” Feel left behind in the world of blogging, online profiles, and photo-sharing sites? Are the negative stories on the news your only source of information? This session will provide you an orientation to social networking tools, as well as how to use their existence as an educational advantage.
Blogs
- Short for “Web Log”
- Online journal
- Instant publication
- Instant feedback
- Communities
- Authentic experiences
- FREE
- Popular blog sites: www.blogger.com, www.typepad.com, wordpress.com.
- Twitter is a micro-blog — Participants get 140 characters to tell the “Twitterverse” what they’re doing right now.
YOU can follow others using Twitter (“following”)– and others using Twitter can follow YOU (“followers”).
Photo Sharing
- Instant sharing with Friends, Family
- Public accounts- sharing
- Flickr, Shutterfly, Dropshots- examples
- Various levels of memberships– Free or Monthly/Yearly subscriptions (more storage, additional features)
- Sharing options- copyright alternatives (Flickr’s Creative Commons)
Online Profile Sites
- MySpace and Facebook- most popular
- Provide a “one stop site” for a personal profile, blogs, photo/video sharing, commenting, quick links
- People with shared interests find a micro-community: Instantly connected to people all over the world, and Networking is facilitated more quickly and easily than ever before
- Quick and easy publishing: No programming or coding knowledge required–Up and running within minutes
- FREE
Privacy Settings
Most Online Profile sites can be set to PRIVATE– public users must “subscribe” or receive permission from site owner to view
Problems with Online Profiles
- Unsupervised- kids may reveal too much.
- No background checks- if you know a person’s email address (or create an imposter email), you can create an online profile site about someone else… without his/her knowledge or permission.
- Without the proper balance, it’s easy to stay “plugged in” all the time.
Help for Parents or Educators – Most online profile sites have a Help section on their main page where parents and educators can find Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
