[English] Re: Social networking for 10-13 year olds?

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Hi all,

An excellent email, from cluefull colleagues .. may be of assistance:

> From:   "Chris Betcher" <chris at betcher.org> 
> To:  <oz-teachers at rite.ed.qut.edu.au> 
> Date:   Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:59:53 -0500 
>
> Subject:  Re: [Oz-teachers] Social networking for 10-13 year olds? 
 
I'm looking to set up a Ning (www.ning.com) for our new Year 6 students.  

It's a hosted, enclosed social networking site that does everything the 
facebooks and myspaces do, except we can manage the overall environment.  

We KNOW that most of these students will be members of the bigger social 
sites over the next few years (if they're not already) and we are working 
on the idea that we need to give them a somewhat structured and 
supervised environment to play in before they set themselves loose in the 
big global social networks.

I just finished reading Clay Shirky's excellent book 'Here Comes 
Everybody' which will explain everything you could possibly want to know 
about social networks and tools.   

In the last chapter, he talks about the promise, the tool and the 
bargain .. worth reading in full, but essentially, each of these social 
environments needs to offer a promise (this is what it can offer), a tool 
(this is a way to make the promise happen) and a bargain (these are the 
rules we will agree on as we use this tool to obtain the promise it 
offers).   Some tools have a bargain that is very loose (do whatever you 
want in here) and others have a more defined bargain (you can only play 
here if you play nice, respect others and do the right things)...  it's 
worth reading the whole thing as I'm not doing it justice.

The promise is that the school will provide a safe, fun social networking 
environmenet to play in that has all the same sorts of things that they 
might get from Facebook or Myspace.  I know that Ning is a tool that can 
deliver on this promise...

But I see the chance to set up a Ning as a good way to establish 
a "bargain"...  or what i would call a culture.  In a managed environment 
like a Ning, our bargain that we will offer to the studennts will be 
something like "you are free to come in here and use this tool to express 
yourself and be creative and be social, but we expect you to do the right 
thing, respect others' rights, learn what is apropriate and 
inappropriate.  We expect you to treat people the same way you would be 
expect to be treated yourself, both online and offline. We expect you to 
learn what online behaviours are safe, responsible and acceptable, and to 
work within those guidlelines If you cannot or will not act responsibly 
online then your opportunities to participate will be limited or even 
removed."   

Our hope is that after a year of being part of an active, interesting 
online social environment like our year 6 Ning, the students will take 
that learning and experience and hopefully apply it in other social 
situations, both online and offlline.

chris

--

2008/12/30 Marita wrote:

> What about MyFamily - http://www.myfamily.com/welcome/
>
> Looked at this a couple of years ago and thought it looked great. 
>
> Marita
>
> oz-teachers mailing list
> oz-teachers at rite.ed.qut.edu.au
> http://lists.rite.ed.qut.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/oz-teachers
--

Cheers Chris
Happy New Year
Stephen Loosley
Member, Victorian
Institute of Teaching
_______________________________________________



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