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Showing posts from February, 2014

child blog: dos and don'ts

This the second post in the two-part discussion on kid blogging. In the first post, we talked about why it is a good idea to introduce blogging to children early in life . In the present post, we discuss the do’s and don’ts of engaging children in blogging. Safety and privacy aspects of child blogging 1. Communicate with the kid. Ask him/her about the blog, give advice, offer to help. BUT not in an overbearing manner. Be subtle: be a partner rather than a warden or headmistress – they have enough of these creatures to deal with. 2. Discuss with them the specific subject of web-safety. Tell them, how giving personal information on the web – even to friends – can reach criminals and how they can exploit it. Give the blog a strong password and let it not be shared by many, and let there be some comment moderation. Don’t put a high-quality photo or scan of an identity card on the net. Don’t mention address, school details and phone number of small children. If the child

13 reasons why you must teach your kid to blog

The subject is so big, we’d use two successive posts to deal with it. Let’s talk in this first post about what we are proposing and then a bit about children’s online safety. In the second post, we talk about the do’s and don’ts of engaging children in blogging . Gift your kid a blog No joke this, and you better do it now if you haven’t done yet. Some assumptions, first. We are talking about children below the age of 12 or so, not young adults and late-teens. Maybe, we’ll discuss teen matters sometime later. We’d discuss children’s own blogs as well as blogs facilitated by parents. Blogs maintained fully by parents are in true sense not kid blogs.  We are talking mostly about personal blogs with social information and comments [and so, blogs that have personal and social consequences], and not blogs on school subjects, technology etc [socially neutral blogs].  How does early blogging help kids? A blog can help in personal, social and intellectual growth of the ch