Group Final

Project Overview

Our group formed because we were interested in helping families gain digital literacy and see digital culture in a positive light. We also wanted to help unify families by helping to bridge the gap between children and parents. We set out to accomplish this by holding a fireside for parents, but because of scheduling difficulties we ended up doing webinars for our families and putting a YouTube playlist together. Here is a link to a Prezi we made that goes more in detail: http://prezi.com/ipylfn4efmvt/the-story-of-digital-sweet-home/

Digital Civics

One aspect of our project was to help parents learn how to use modern technologies and websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Part of the reason we did this was to help parents see digital culture in a positive light, but another was to help parents learn how to help their children. We recommended that parents teach their children how to interact and be a good citizen online.

Beta

We were planning a big event at the end of the semester, but Dr. Burton encouraged us to do more of a preliminary event. He helped us realize that we needed to do "beta testing" of our product early, and follow the "release early release often" model instead of waiting for a finished product. We did multiple webinars, starting with only our group and expanding to do a webinar with our families.

Social Capital

We viewed ourselves as a bridge between parents and their children because we were teenagers recently and grew up with the digital age. We wanted to portray digital media in a positive light, which means we give a lot of stock to online currency (not using credit cards to pay for things online). In a way, we were helping to teach others to give credence to online social currency.

K9 & YouTube

I've been searching for a good YouTube video to explain K9 Web Protection. I've been all through the K9 website and been on YouTube while looking. I've come across a couple decent videos and a lot of bad ones.

The main problem I have with the decent ones is that they are usually pretty long. Another problem I have is that when you are watching a video to explain how to use K9 there are several videos explaining how to get around the program. That's one thing I worry about when using these types of software, whether we're protecting people or teaching them how to get around things. I like the idea of a safety net, but I worry about sharing a video that might help others find a way to get around K9.

When I was on K9's website I found that they provide other ways to share their services. However, I don't feel that it's very effective. They provide the files to download the files to burn to a cd, as well as use of their banner to share with others. They also provide links to where others have talked about their website. I wish they would have created their own video on how to use their services instead of leaving it to other people.

My Parents & Balance

As I've been continuing to do research for my presentation, one thing I've done lots of pondering upon without coming up with any brilliant solutions of my own is how to create trust between parents and children, specifically teenagers, when it comes to internet and media use. 

I haven't been a teenager for a while, but even so I still remember wanting my autonomy from my parents when it came to how I used a computer or my cell phone. It's hard because teens want freedom from their parents, but they aren't old enough to be adults. Cell phones and computers have also become integrated with school, which has complicated how parents can monitor their children's media usage.

I started visiting parenting websites and other reports to come up with a solution for my presentation. I looked up more than just how to monitor teen's digital media use, I looked up how to build trust between parents and teenagers. A lot of what was recommended was for parents to set up clear boundaries, and not to enforce rules sometimes and not others or only when parents feel like it so that teens understand what's expected. It was also recommended that teens be involved in the rule-making process; and that when they are involved not only are they more apt to follow the rules, but that teens have more success in other areas of their life too because they learn how to deal with rules and regulations and how to follow them and succeed.

This is the approach my parents took. They set up the rules, but if I felt like a rule was unfair or I felt like it was being unjustly enforced I could have a discussion about it and we would come up with a solution. That doesn't mean that just because I didn't like a rule or thought it was unfair my parents did away with it, but I did feel like my parents valued my opinion and it gave me ownership over those rules.

This last part was missing from my presentation. I know I wanted to cover it, but now I have a much better idea in how to present it.

While I looked at many, many websites (and lots of them gave similar advice), this is the best one I found:

http://teenbrain.drugfree.org/tools/underconstruction/boundaries.html

Shifting Thoughts on Digital Media

When I was growing up my parents limited the amount of time we could spend watching television, surfing the internet, or playing video games. As I became a teenager the amount of time I spent on the computer increased drastically, and it became hard for my parents to enforce a limit on "screen time" because I needed to do homework. Things also were a little more complicated during this time not everyone had a cell phone, so I spent a lot of time on the computer to communicate with my friends.

My parents and I had disagreements about what constituted "screen time," and how much time I should spend on the computer. I am well past those days, but I still remember them. In our fireside I am discussing balance. I thought about how to ensure that children, and especially teenagers, can find balance between digital content and everything else. As I turned to the internet and other resources to research how to find balance with digital media I realized that the best way to find balance when it comes to teenagers is not to put a simple time limit on screen time, but to use it as a teaching mechanism.

Instead of creating time limits, create places and times when digital media is off limits. For example, have a bowl everyone puts their phones in during dinner and make sure the tv is off, or have everyone turn their phones in at a certain time each night before they go to bed. It's still a great idea to limit time vegging in front of the tv, but it might also be a good idea to create time when teenagers and kids can read and/or exercise.

Another good idea is to help children and teenagers learn how to interact with others online. It's a good teaching opportunity, and instead of sending the message that spending time online is bad teach them how to combat cyber-bullying or learn something new or any other number of great activities.

Taking a different approach from limiting screen time really opened my eyes to the opportunities available via digital media.

Here's one link I found that was very helpful:

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/family/parenting-tips/recommended-screen-time-for-children

V for Vendetta Character List

I know there are a couple V for Vendetta fans out there who may be interested in this post.

This is completely speculative and informal research, but it's something I am interested in. When Alan Moore first created the character, he said that it was going to be a character in the story that was V. Much like Batman has a hidden identity, but instead of Gotham not knowing the identity it's the reader. Moore has made comments and hinted at it but never come out and said who it was (at least as far as I have seen, he very well may have and I just missed it).

There are others that I've found that are interested, but a lot of people say that knowing the identity doesn't matter and might even detract from the story. I don't think knowing the identity would detract from the story, I am merely interested.

Here's the brief research I've done into who the possible suspects are. (I did it without rereading the graphic novel, but I'm planning on going back and revising the list when I have more time)

K9 Web Protection & Balance

For our fireside my focus is "balance." There are many directions to take this, but I think I'm going to talk a little bit about how to control digital media in the home. I plan on talking about time spent using digital media, but I also want to discuss programs that we can use to help us balance.

One thing I decided to look into was filters that can be used and I came across K9 Web Protection. It has a great list of features. Here's the list from the website:

• Web site blocking by category, including pornography, illegal drugs, personals/dating, violence/hate/racism
• Easy pre-set levels to choose from depending on the age of your children
• SafeSearch enabled on all search engines to show cleaner search results
• Time restrictions, including NightGuard(tm), to disallow internet access during designated times
• Custom “always allow” and “always block” lists for your personal preferences
• Ability to override a block with the parent password
• Tamper resistant for more savvy kids
• Reports showing activity to categories of web sites
• Real-time categorization of new web sites
• Compatible with Windows or Mac machines

As far as the features go, it seems to work pretty well. The biggest perk (to me at least) is that it's free and it does a good job.

I did find the settings to be a bit clunky. For example, I've tried resetting the password multiple times and I haven't been able to create one that I want. Instead, I have used the temporary password that they emailed me. 

For their levels of protection they do have pre-set levels to choose from, but I wanted something in-between their settings and didn't see an easy way to customize it.

Also, the reports showing activity on the computer is also a little hard to understand.

In spite of these criticisms I do think this is a good product if you are in the market for one, it just may take time to learn how to use it.