Our thinking

I watched the BBC Panorama programme earlier this week with the added knowing I am on the verge of entering the debate of “Too Much Too Young” on my own doorstep, at home.

Panorama discussed the sexualisation of the young, teenagers.  And as usual, social media popped in the equation, the use of social media by the young.

As a parent of an 11 year old who is beginning to explore the online world, I know at this point of his life I have more knowledge and influence on him than I ever will.  A few more years down the line 1. He’s not going to take notice of me 2. He’s possibly going to be more online savvy than me (hopefully not!) and 3. He’ll think I’m wrong and he will think he knows best!

So how best to address this?

I’ve been thinking about this for some time.  I’m going to approach it with complete transparency.  Give it to him straight and give it to him like a lesson.  What it is, what exists, how to work it, legal side (watch panorama for some interesting thoughts on this) and pros/cons of it all with real life examples.  Above all, what to be careful of with the view of implanting little nuggets of information which will trigger alarm bells in certain situations when he’s older.

Then I got to thinking. Is this part of ICT education now?  It jolly well should be.  There are too many adults using social networks in such a way which scare the life out of me let alone their children .  Furthermore reading in the press, more and more cases of libel concerning individual uses of Twitter, hi-lights even more the need that we have a duty to educate everyone to the same level on online use……and surely that begins in the classroom.

After all, one thing is certain social media is here to stay.

Photo credit: socialmediamixer

When I was a kid, going to see Santa at Hanningtons in Brighton was one of the highlights of the Festive season. Going through the winter scene (paper mache), onto the special sleigh ride (the decorated lift), meeting Mr C and receiving an exciting gift of a Catch It Cone, was just the best Christmas you could ever want.

Now, however, as the visits to Santa get more ambitious, expensive and the questions about why is Santa at our local garden centre gets harder to answer, I have the perfect solution!  I don’t need to take my kids to see Santa he sends his very own personalised message to them via email!!!

Santa’s message includes their photos, special details about what they need to make extra effort with (i.e. what I am constantly asking them to do), reminder of what they asked for Christmas complete with image (the main toy they are getting, regardless of whether it’s what they wanted) and insider details about the North Pole operations.  Ooh I love the Internet.

Whether it’s tracking Santa on Christmas Eve with Norad or Portable North Pole Santa Console, the kids generally prefer this personalised direct 1-2-1 messaging which they can watch over and over again. My youngest has watched his over and over again, answering Santa’s questions.  And it’s FREE!

Only draw back this year was I had got it wrong. I had got the wrong present! Son no.2 didn’t want the IronMan 2 car…. he wanted SpyGear or Kung Zhu Warrior Hamsters, how did Santa get that wrong?!

So a quick email to Santa just to check and a secret visit to Argos to exchange items and I think we are all sorted for Christmas Day.

Having just purchased a rather nice APPLE Mac to play round with photos and videos, I’m pretty impressed with the face recognition tool in photos.

The photo software supplied allows the user to ‘tag’ photos with names and it will then automatically search for the tagged individual across your entire photo collection, giving you the opportunity to confirm the identity.

Great!! But as with all technology I now expect it everywhere! I want my APPLE to talk to my Facebook profile and integrate the two seamlessly.

Just imagine the future; all the social media applications automatically recognising and tagging faces.  The Face book and Google privacy departments would have a field day collecting and using information about individuals all accidentally (of course).

I can see the headlines now – ‘Caught in the Act!’ – ‘Marriage wrecked by automatic tagging recognition of wife on Face book page’
Combined with the power of geolocation and instant photo tagging…. the mind boggles.

However, there is a limitation with the photo tagging on the MAC.
It does not do pets. At least not yet.