School children, increasingly into electronic media to study and do homework as well as socialize, should know how to navigate this new world, says a developer of educational software.
“There are a lot of issues,” Randy Parker said in an interview. “Students need to use technology efficiently, but, at the same time, in a way to protect themselves.”
Parker will speak at a forum for parents at 6 p.m. today in the library at Miller Middle School, 2608 Junction St. The title of his presentation is “How to Guide Your Middle Schooler in the World of Social Media.”
The forum is what Miller Principal Cito Nuhn envisioned when the Miller Parent Action Committee formed this fall at his urging. The group meets the first Wednesday of the month.
“Parents have a lot of questions,” Nuhn said. “They’re interested in the effects of social media.”
Nuhn is in his first year as principal, but he taught social studies and language arts at Miller for 15 years and was an assistant principal at Durango High School.
He has seen the positive and the pitfalls of social media, Nuhn said.
Students who followed on social media the wave of demonstrations across North Africa and Middle East nations starting in 2010, which became known as the Arab Spring, greatly expanded their world view, Nuhn said.
Conversely, he has seen students devastated by finding cruel or derogatory comments about themselves on a website on which anyone can write anonymously, Nuhn said.
Parker said the Internet is, indeed, a wealth of information for scholastic endeavor, but teenagers must learn to recognize bogus sources and individuals with less than honorable intentions who troll the Internet.
“There are scams and there is phishing (masquerading as a trustworthy source to obtain personal data),” Parker said. “There is cyberbullying.”
Parker, a founding staff member at Mountain Middle School, was manager of digital production at Walt Disney Feature Animation. He started his own business in Durango, creating Web-based educational software for children. He currently is director of marketing at StoneAge Tools.
Parker expects the open nature of his presentation Wednesday will draw comments from parents and start a lively conversation.
He wants to cover the amount of time students take for online games, how to validate sources of information and copyright laws regarding music, text and images.
Parker will lead a discussion of the advantages of instant communication and potential pitfalls of instant communication through email, Facebook and Twitter.
Visiting cyberspace leaves a trail, Parker said. A person’s presence there is public and permanent.
daler@durangoherald.com
If you go
“How to Guide Your Middle Schooler in the World of Social Media,” 6 p.m. today at the Miller Middle School library, 2608 Junction St.
