Digital Age Parenting Resources & Reading

by Colleen Worrell, Secondary Technology Integration Coordinator

As a follow up to our Google for Parents workshop, I wanted to share a few resources that help to address some of the questions participants raised about “digital-age parenting.”

Cyberwise is a good “go to” site for parents. Their logo says it all: “No Grownup Left Behind.”

A recent blog post on their site, “What is a Modern Parent,” addresses the impact of the internet and smartphones on parenting and family life today. The post includes information on an app (of course!) called Copilot Family that claims to be “an easy to use tool to help you manage your children's smart phones and tablets.” I have not checked this out by thought I’d include the link here for parents who are interested in learning more.

Parents might also want to take a few minutes to watch the Cyberwise video, "What Kids are (Really) Doing Online.”

The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) has a Good Digital Parenting section that provides videos, tip sheets, resources, blogs, and more. Part of their mission is research, and this month they released a report entitled “Parenting in the Digital Age: How Parents Weigh the Potential Benefits and Harms of Their Children's Technology Use." The full report is long, so I am providing you with a link to the overview report, which has some interesting data: Report Overview.

One interesting statistic from the November 2014 FOSI report: “When weighing the potential benefits and potential harms of their children using electronic devices and being online, the majority of parents (53%) feel that, overall, the potential benefits outweigh the potential harms.”

PBS’s Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century provides a great snapshot of how technology and social media can advance the mission of student-centered learning. The show “explores how exceptional educators are increasingly using digital media and interactive practices to ignite their students' curiosity and ingenuity, help them become civically engaged, allow them to collaborate with peers worldwide, and empower them to direct their own learning.”

I hope these resources help to address some of the questions and concerns you might have about family life in the digital age!

"Parenting in the Digital Age" Infographic from http://brighthouse.com/digitalparenting.

"Google It" & Beyond: Google for Parents Workshop at HHS

by Colleen Worrell, Secondary Technology Integration Coordinator

More than 40 parents joined the HPS Learning Technologies staff and our 3 student helpers from the Class of 2017 (Julie Tarantino, Sid Shinde, and Jon Katz) to learn about ways to use Google in their everyday lives.

The goal was to help parents understand that Google is much more than a search engine. By signing up for a Gmail account, Google gives parents access to the same storage, creation, and sharing tools that HHS & HMS students use on a daily basis.

For those of you who could not attend, we wanted to share the slides from the workshop: HPS Google for Parents (Google Slides presentation)

Also, here is the document we created to share resources and help differentiate learning for parents: HPS Google for Parents Workshop Resources (Google Doc)

Any parents who attended the workshop are encourage to complete this survey to provide feedback: Feedback Survey for Google for Parents Workshop (Google Form).

Here is some of the feedback we’ve received so far from parents who completed the survey:

"Wow'd by the turnout!”

“It was put together very well and covered lots of helpful tips.”

We will host another session of the Google for Parents Workshop in early December. Stay tuned for the announcement!