Monday, July 09, 2007

Kids and the Web.

Chana has a great post (her unedited notes) summarizing a shiur in Chicago at Congregation KINS about Internet Safety. The lecture was for adults. Speakers included Rabbi Harvey Well, Rabbi Zev Cohen, Rabbi Norman Lowenthal and Rabbi David Pelcovitz.

As a parent, I don't think it's alarmist; rather it presents a frank view of the pitfalls of the internet for children.

I found this paragraph telling:
[At the] Turn of [the] century, [there were] many reasons why their children may not have remained shomer shabbas, [kept] mitzvoth, [and] kashrus - one of those reasons is because parents didn’t understand [the] language, [and] culture - [this is] no longer an option for us to say I can’t turn on [the] computer on until [our] son comes home from yeshiva - [it's] not funny when you can’t fix [your] computer till son comes home - children need to know this valuable tool is something we understand also.

We are digital immigrants; our children are digital natives.
While I personally like to believe I'm a digital native, technology moves so quickly that we need to be quick on our toes to keep up.

I found it impressive that the shiur was sponsored by ATT.

When you have some time, I highly recommend reading her posting.


Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As much as kids might hate it, joining Facebook or other similar sites in an effort to know children's friends is one of the best moves a parent could make. I only know of one parent who has done so, unfortunately.

Of course, there are other obvious moves as well, such as monitoring children's internet usage and restricting usage to public areas, as well as educating them about internet safety.

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