Digital Parent

Welcome to Digital Parent at ourschool.ca

This website - blog - was created as support for the Growing up online Workshop at the Niagara Catholic Regional School Council Convention April 18, 2009. The resources can be accessed 24/7 so please pass the link on to people who could not attend the workshop. If you need any clarifications, drop me a note in the comment section. You are free to share these resources and offer the content as an online workshop. If you want a guided workshop - this content - or tailored to your group, please ask for more information at book a workshop.

The diverse opinions through out the site are independent and external to the Niagara Catholic District School Board. They are posted here for your information and discussion. As in all issues with students, parents are the first educators of their children and are responsible to ensure that practices and policies for their children while using the internet are reflective of each individual family values.

The keynote speaker was Vanessa Van Petten. Visit her site at www.radicalparenting.com

So here is a question to you from Herbert Reingold; the author of Tools for Thought, The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs.

21st Century Literacies

Will our grandchildren grow up knowing how to pluck the answer to any question out of the air, summon their social networks to assist them personally or professionally, organize political movements and markets online? Will they collaborate to solve problems, participate in online discussions as a form of civic engagement, share and teach and learn to their benefit and that of everyone else?

Or will they grow up knowing that the online world is a bewildering puzzle to which they have few clues, a dangerous neighborhood where their identities can be stolen, a morass of spam and porn, misinformation and disinformation, urban legends, hoaxes, and scams? I have collected evidence over the past several decades that suggests the humanity or toxicity of next year’s digital culture depends to a very large degree on what we know, learn, and teach each other about how to use the one billion Internet accounts and four billion mobile phones available today……………

the difference between the haves and have nots, between education and disinfotainment, is not a matter of hardware or software or even (entirely) of being able to afford access to the Web. The most important critical uncertainty today is how many of us learn to use digital media and networks effectively, reasonably, credibly, collaboratively, civilly, humanely.

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Lorna Costantini

www.lornacostantini.com