Comments on: Social-networking for Children

By: Antinosheatte

Antinosheatte — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:38:54 +0000

Hi all invited
I dialect expect you demand a “sport”here a minuscule longer in this forum

By: Josh

Josh — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:40:21 +0000

Hi Tracey,

Thanks so much for your article. I’m currently researching the potential, explicit educational value of SNSs for elementary students in the U.S. so your article is perfectly timed. I’m wondering, where did you get your statistics and other information? I’d love to read some of the original material.

Thanks, Josh

By: Suna

Suna — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:51:07 +0000

There are social networking sites for children that are popular in the US. Most have merchandise attached – Webkinz, Neopets, Beanie 2.0 – or are extensions of media companies such as Disney’s Club Penguin or Disney Extreme Digital and Nickelodeon’s Nicktropolis.com. But none of these are educational.

Locally, the Seattle School District launched The Source, which doesn’t have social networking, but does has a component to allow school classes to have their own websites. It’s disappointingly little-used.

Of course, many websites are blocked on classroom computers (in the classrooms that have computers); in addition, cell phones and other network-enabled devices are not allowed in most classrooms (not that many elementary students have cell phones.) So hardware and Internet access provide basic limitations to use.

It will be interesting to see how this changes, if at all, in the next couple years. Will school districts scrounge up money somehow to provide more access? Will teachers welcome this, or will they view it as one more distraction that students have to filter?

By: Tracey

Tracey — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:22:31 +0000

Pei – I think the internet is not something parents can keep away from their children anymore. Even if they are to be addicted it seems the only way to even salvage the situation is to at least direct them in a more proper way of utilizing the internet as a good tool rather than just entertainment.

Peter – I tried searching for an US example but failed. Maybe I should just email Uschool in Taiwan and ask them directly.. 8D

Yenching – There are actually various platforms that give this service of language learning. I had felt it is very smart of Uschool to target such a young crowd. Parents most likely are willing to pay to keep their children on the right track.

By: yenching

yenching — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:38:01 +0000

I like this post. It’s surprises me that Uschool is designed for children and it has become so successful. It’s great to see that people start to utilize SNS for education purpose rather than entertaining. I wonder if SNS sites will benefit the language learners. For example, the Japanese learners can talk to other children in Japan. This might help the language learners to learn the language in a native-speaker environment.

By: pluyckx

pluyckx — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:20:04 +0000

It’ll be interesting to see how well uschoolnet.com will do in the U.S. Thanks for the response.

By: Pei-chieh

Pei-chieh — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:49:58 +0000

Great post!!
I believe a SNS will help children learn in the classroom. However, I also worry that children who access to the Internet may be addict to it too much. Are there any protection system for the kids?

By: raquel.hirai

raquel.hirai — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:05:08 +0000

Wow! That is really awesome! Thank you for your response!