Twitter

My 8 year old wants to start using on line tools. I looked at signing him up for a NING but, his is not old enough. I was wondering about twitter. I use twitter and enjoy it. IS there any reason I should avoid twitter? Are there groups there (or elsewhere ) that would be appropriate for a child his age?

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on April 3, 2009 at 7:20pm

Maybe he could start with a blog. He could get some practice writing, upload pics, read and comment about stuff in the news, etc. Then he could share with grandparents, friends, etc. My students' blog has several parents bloggers and the kids really like it--there have been some great conversations between student and parent.

If he has an interest in anything he could use weebly to do a website.

There are also some social networks for younger kids-- I personally haven't used them, but have students who use them.

Sparktop http://www.sparktop.org/intro.html
Woogi World http://www.woogiworld.com/
Whyville http://www.whyville.net/smmk/nice
Club Penguin http://www.clubpenguin.com/
Webkinz http://www.webkinz.com/

I would stay away from twitter, chatrooms, etc. he has plenty of years for that. I teach kids K-12 and am horrified at what some of my 12 year olds are allowed to do!! Yikes.

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on April 4, 2009 at 4:31am

Twitter's Terms of Service clearly state that it is available only to individuals 13 or older.

Around that age I bought domains for my kids (biological) and set up WordPress blogs.

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Permalink Reply by Sylvia Martinez on April 4, 2009 at 3:47pm

It seems a little young for social networking. Like Nancy, I'd stick to closed child-friendly sites.

But what about some creativity tools? Scratch is simple enough for an 8 year old to program some fun games and stories and he can share them online, download other projects to learn from and build on them.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on April 4, 2009 at 4:46pm

Sylvia, I would hate to have a pre-teen in 2009! I am scared and in some cases horrified for them , not only what they are exposed to but what they can do with technology. I tried to discuss a 12 year old girl's cell phone, social network usage to parents just yesterday--warning of what I could see to problematic behavior and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. I bet cha $100.00 she will be caught sxting or bullying with in the next year. I think there are teacher (and parents) who are pretty naive to what is out there and available for young kids and may not provide the monitoring necessary. I know at least some of my 6th graders have Facebook pages and they certainly don't read or care about the TOS.

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Permalink Reply by Sylvia Martinez on April 6, 2009 at 10:12am

I agree, Nancy, things do seem more complicated and scary.

But I think the key is in what you said about "problematic" or risky behavior. I've seen experts say that this is really the only indication of how safe a student is online or offline. We have to focus on behavior and not the technology.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on April 6, 2009 at 10:56am

I do agree that kiddos who are going to try risky things will do it with or without technology but I think the technology offers anonymity--kids say things they would never say f2f, take pictures of body parts they would never reveal f2f.....and so on.

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Permalink Reply by Fred Ravan on April 5, 2009 at 9:16am

Thanks for all the input. Since he basically wants to create things, we have decided to with Scratch. It is a difficult thing to balance security, with appropriate material, etc...