Handouts

Social Networking:

 * What information do you include in your profile(s)?
 * How are your profiles different from one another?
 * What happens when members of the network have different opinions or interests — are you more likely to participate when everyone seems to agree or do you jump into debates?
 * Also, he may need your help remembering that once information goes online, it is out of his hands — and potentially in the hands or college admissions offices and future employers. Anyone can view, copy, store and forward it to others — no permission necessary.

Personal Broadcasting:

 * Who's attention are you trying to grab?
 * What response are you hoping to receive?

Feeds and Streaming Info

 * What are your favorite sources of information? and Why?

Remixing/Mashing/Sampling

 * How did you get the idea to combine certain elements?
 * What were you trying to do by changing other elements?

Mobile Networks

 * What kinds of personal information are you releasing and to whom?

Eleven Skills Teens Will Need
In 2006 the MacArthur Foundation launched a five-year initiative to determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life. As part of this initiative, Henry Jenkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, identified the following set of 11 skills that young people will need-and schools and parents will need to spend more time fostering — if they are to be what he considers "full, active, creative, and ethical participants" in the emerging participatory culture. More information about these skills is in a report titled, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (available as a PDF).
 * 1) Play: the capacity to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem-solving
 * 2) Performance: the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery.
 * 3) Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes.
 * 4) Appropriation: the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.
 * 5) Multitasking: the ability to scan one's environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
 * 6) Distributed Cognition: the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities.
 * 7) Collective Intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal.
 * 8) Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources.
 * 9) Transmedia Navigation: the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities (eg., computer, cell-phone, TV).
 * 10) Networking: the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information.
 * 11) Negotiation: the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.

6 Ways to Make the Most of Online Information
===** 1. **** Encourage your teen to question all Web sites. **=== Have your teen ask: Where does this information come from? How does this Web site's information (text, images, overall look and feel) shape my understanding? What is the point of view? What information is missing? Are certain people or opinions not represented? Is somebody trying to sell me something? ===** 2. **** Talk to your teen about the type - and source - of online information. **=== Click on "About Us" and other kinds of "Who We Are" links; these offer background information about Web sites. Talk to your teen about the gap between facts that can be proven and statements that lack proof. You might ask: What research is available to back up that position? How do you know that? ===** 3. **** Have teens visit multiple sources about the same topic. **=== A side-by-side comparison of Web sites can reveal the limits of a site and expose its bias. It may also disclose the site's sponsors, and how they might have shaped the content. ===** 4. **** Talk to your teen about the gap between how something looks and whether it can be trusted. **=== Sleek does not mean solid: A well-designed site is no guarantee of reliable information. Help your teen understand that Web site designers can produce sharp design, clear navigation and persuasive testimonials without offering accurate content. ===** 5. **** Arm your teen with fact-checking resources. **=== Sites that debunk urban legends can help dispel rumors, claims too good to be true, and "news" of alleged computer viruses. Enter "urban legend" or "urban myth" into a search engine such as Google and check the Virus Hoax area of [|Symantec's Anti-Virus Research Center]. ===** 6. **** Encourage your teen to be skeptical about health information on the Web. **=== Health factoids—quick, factual snippets found on the Web—can be convenient, but they often lack context or background. Help your teen examine health topics: Rather than settling for the first answer to a search query, visit a variety of sources and weigh multiple points of view.