CTRL-ALT-DELiver 10 looks at your kids and technology. The face of technology users is getting younger and we need to be ready to address the concerns that this causes. Facebook, Twitter, and other social aspects of technology each provide us with a need for a new set of rules for how to use the new Web 2.0 Tools.
From an article on CNN, we need to be taking a look at reestablishing rules and guidelines for our kids with technology. Although, as a 5th Grade teacher, I am well aware that a large number of my students have Facebook accounts, this fact was beyond my wildest thoughts.The article states:
Consider that more than 7.5 million children under age 13 utilize Facebook in violation of the social network’s terms of use, according to Consumer Reports. More than five million of them are 10 and under. Many parents are even actively lying to help underage kids join the service, a new study in peer-reviewed online journal First Monday further reveals.
The rules and the guidelines that we have in place are obsolete. This is no longer just trying to avoid a well known inappropriate website.From the obvious, “don’t click on this warnings” that we have given our children over the years, we now add the “don’t allow apps and webpages access to your Facebook page”. With sites such as Take This Lollipop demonstrating the dangers of doing so, the power of these apps to display your information in frightening ways is all the more evident.
I’ve got to admit, I myself am drawn into these things with sites like The Wilderness Downtown with Arcade Fire. And so maybe that is why I am more drawn to Twitter. I can do less damage to myself with 140 characters.
And so that brings me to a post I did on CTRLALTDELIVER.COM.
Aside from actually using the web based Twitter.com, most of us probably use a third party application for enjoying our Twitter conversations. Admittedly, I am relatively new to the Twitter scene, having not started until this past December. I am, however, now a big advocate of Twitter as having tremendous value in several avenues. We have all seen the amazing speed of access to breaking news from troubles overseas to the devastation of the tornados in the South. I have also discovered the value of the hashtag (#edtech, #edchat have yielded me a treasure trove of links and information for my professional development). The question became “which client is going to make the information the most easily accessible to me?”
Anyone that knows me can attest that I am the King of Redundancy. It’s a wonderful kingdom in which I live. FULL of a variety of software programs that all do the same thing to differing degrees. The problem, of course, is that my kingdom is not increasing in size, while the number of programs is. As an elementary school teacher on a limited budget, I have to drain every last drop out of my old computer and the time for purging is upon us. So what Twitter client do I save and which one do I get rid of? Let’s start with the Big Three: TweetDeck, Seesmic, and Hootsuite.
I run Tweetdeck in two different flavors- the desktop Adobe Air client and the Chrome version. The same applies for Seesmic. Hootsuite is a web based client.
Visually, they are all similar.
One place that Hootsuite takes an edge, though, is in the analytics that it provides from within the client.
There has been plenty written about the Big Three, but I really wanted to take a look at a couple of clients that you might NOT have seen.
For example, the single column, but very catchy Blu Client.
It’s a little buggy, but is heading in a great direction for simple Twitter needs. It is visually appealing, clean in its design, and fast and responsive. (Little thing, but I like the big character count display when you enter your Tweet.)
It minimizes in a unique way, as well. It’s just a big blue bird on your desktop.
Sobees is another client that is similar to the multi-column views of TweetDeck, HootSuite, and Seesmic.
There are a lot more options for layouts, though, than just the multi-column format. It also can integrate with a nice list of Social Networks.
I have recently tried Destroy Twitter, as well, and to be honest with you, I don’t think it even put a dent in Twitter, let alone destroy it.
My favorite of the new breed, however, has to be MetroTwit. Using the UI that is rapidly becoming All Things Windows, the Metro UI is clean and sharp. (I find it to be the easiest to read of all of them for my 56 year old eyes).
The columns can be re-sized, which is a plus in anyone’s book.
There are minimal changes to be made in the display settings, but that is the beauty of Metro. Simplicity.
From the posts that I have read at #MetroTwit, it appears to have quite a following on an International level.
And hey, if Dwight Silverman (@dsilverman) loves it, how can you go wrong?
So what do YOU use and WHY? Let us hear from you
Update:
sandraglen.wordpress.com has had 20,000 hits as of this afternoon, at just about one week of being online.The response has been overwhelming.Sandra is making remarkable progress. She had her 30th birthday in the hospital on Sunday. It was the first time for her kids to see her since the accident. Glen is maintaining, still being chemically paralyzed so that he does not fight against his tubes and gives his body the time to heal itself enough to get the CT scan done and broken limbs repaired.
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