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Wednesday 1st April 2009 12:26 pm
Dialogues to Bridge Online Generation Gap
Parents, teachers, and teens: Sign up for the first-ever cross-generational conversation about digital ethics from April 13–May 4, 2009, and help shape a national conversation about the promise, and perils, of life online.
By Rafi Santo, Linda Burch and Carrie James
Participants in the online dialogues—the second organized by FOCUS: Cross-Generational Voices on Digital Media and Society—will discuss a range of digital dilemmas. Topics over the three weeks will include:
• How do we navigate the increasingly public online realm while retaining a sense of privacy?
• What are the implications of having multiple identities online?
• How does becoming a media producer change one’s perspectives on concepts of authorship and ownership?
Holding this conversation online, FOCUS hopes to change the dynamics of the existing adult/youth discussion. Typically, adults interact with teens in contexts where they have more power. Online, these dynamics can be somewhat mitigated. Hopefully, the kind of honesty that the online forum can engender will help adults better understand where youth are coming from, and vice versa.
Global Kids launched the first round of FOCUS dialogues in 2006, soon after the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning initiative began mapping youths’ digital media habits and practices. The project was designed to bring explicit and unfiltered youth voices into a conversation often limited to the ivory tower, the teacher’s lounge, or PTA meetings.
Teens from 26 countries debated everything from cell phones in the classroom to how they deal with credibility issues online. Over three weeks, they posted more than 1,000 messages, which Global Kids summarized in the first FOCUS report. A dominant theme was the teens’ sense of being on their own when navigating their lives online. To them, adult involvement rarely went beyond restricting access. These concerns helped shape this year’s FOCUS dialogues.
The goal for the current dialogues is not necessarily to come to definitive conclusions about the “right answer” to any given digital dilemma but, rather, to surface and explore the different attitudes, assumptions and mental models that teens and adults may have about these issues. The dialogues can then provide a basis for changing how parents and teachers talk about and relate to teen life online.
Any parent, educator, or teen is welcome to join the April 13–May 4 FOCUS dialogues by registering in advance at FocusOnDigitalMedia.org. Each day, participants will be challenged to think about different ethical issues and will be free to raise questions and issues of their own. Findings will be shared later in 2009.
FOCUS is organized by Global Kids, Common Sense Media, and Harvard’s GoodPlay Project.
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