Media Mentor Month 2022-23

March is just around the corner and you know what that means…!

Media Mentor Month is a global education initiative designed to help parents/teachers develop a supportive relationship with their children/students around digital technologies. It provides prompts to celebrate positive uses of technology, explore creative pursuits, and encourage us to take time for important conversations about how we best use our devices.

The pandemic has reinforced the importance of maintaining and developing these positive relationships with young people. Globally, many students have had to work through extended periods of hybrid learning and/or online learning, bringing with it many challenges.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

With this in mind, I invite you to join me once again to participate in Media Mentor Month, where, in addition to the Monopoly-style game board for Elementary students/parents, we now have a Middle/High school edition! For these older students, we developed some conversation starters around a series of weekly themes:

• 🗣 Communication
• 🗓 Organization
• 🧘🏽 Well-Being
• 📱 Social Media
• 🧠 Learning

We know students benefit from sharing with their peers. They have often developed sophisticated strategies and approaches that others could learn from, e.g. how they manage distractions, or their use of extensions or apps to stay productive. We adults can learn many great tips just by listening once we have offered a prompt.

Parents might choose to find a topic of interest and drop some of the suggestions into conversations. Teachers might select one a day to focus on with a whole class, or use a prompt in a 1:1 mentoring conversation. However you choose to use them, you can find them embedded below, or view them via the link here.

MS/HS Media Mentor Month Prompts

Below you can find the Elementary Game Board (we recommend printing A3 size)

Click here to access A3 PDF via Google Drive

Click here to access A3 PDF via Google Drive. With thanks to Stephanie Lu Wang for the translation.

For individual versions of the gameboard prompts, please see below:

We hope you will join us in completing some of the activities and look forward to seeing your tweets using the hashtag #MediaMentorMonth!

For further reading relating to Media Mentor Month, please see the links below:
Media Mentors, Not Media Police – blog post explaining the background to our first MMM, including research findings and book recommendations.
Managing Distractions with Mario – blog post containing strategies for creating the conditions for successful learning
More Digital Parenting Conversation Ideas – myths about screen time and some healthy habits to foster.
Speaking to G12 about Digital Wellness – a video of my talk with WAB senior students earlier this year, highlighting potential positives and negatives of technology for their consideration.
Media Mentor 2021 – Our fourth iteration of Media Mentor Month.
Media Mentor 2020 – Our third iteration of Media Mentor Month.
Media Mentor 2019 – The second Media Mentor Month.
Media Mentor 2018 – Our inaugural Media Mentor Month!

Media Mentor Month 2021

We are now in our 4th iteration of Media Mentor Month – surely the perfect time to mix it up! But before I launch into all of that, a little background information:

Media Mentor Month is a global education initiative designed to help parents develop a positive relationship with their children around digital technologies. It provides prompts to celebrate positive uses of technology, explore creative pursuits, and encourages us to take time for important conversations about how we best use our devices.

Click here to access A3 PDF via Google Drive

Click here to access A3 PDF via Google Drive. With thanks to Stephanie Lu Wang for the translation.

This year, I worked with educators Sandra Chow and Clint Hamada to create a game-based format for Media Mentor Month. You will still find prompts (as in previous iterations), however, as busy parents ourselves, we wanted a format to allow families to dip in and out of the suggestions, and to gamify things a little for students who are motivated by that.

Select the activities you wish to explore from the gameboard. As you complete them, cut out the corresponding pieces and glue them to the gameboard.

Below you will find larger versions of each activity, along with links to resources that you may find useful.

We hope you will join us in completing some of the activities and look forward to seeing your tweets using the hashtag #MediaMentorMonth!

For further reading relating to Media Mentor Month, please see the links below:
Media Mentors, Not Media Police – blog post explaining the background to our first MMM, including research findings and book recommendations.
Managing Distractions with Mario – blog post containing strategies for creating the conditions for successful learning
More Digital Parenting Conversation Ideas – myths about screen time and some healthy habits to foster.
Speaking to G12 about Digital Wellness – a video of my talk with WAB senior students earlier this year, highlighting potential positives and negatives of technology for their consideration.
Media Mentor 2020 – Our third iteration of Media Mentor Month.
Media Mentor 2019 – The second Media Mentor Month.
Media Mentor 2018 – Our inaugural Media Mentor Month!

Media Mentor Month 2020

March Media Mentor Month is BACK! This year seems more relevant than ever as we have so many families involved in distance learning online due to school closures as a result of the #COVID-19 outbreak.

Click here to access via Google Drive, or click here to access via Dropbox.

Click here to access via Dropbox, or click here to access via Google Drive

(The PDF above is also available in Korean via Dropbox here, or Google Drive here)

In my household, we are now onto week 4 of online-only learning. It has been a huge learning curve for our family, highlighting our complete reliance on our devices as learning tools (and entertainment powerhouses!), but also the value of spending time together – both on and offline.

I hope that Media Mentor Month 2020 provides an opportunity to engage in experiences that celebrate positive uses of technology, explore some creative pursuits, and encourage you to take time for important conversations about how we best use our devices. Let us be the media mentors our children need us to be.

For link to .ppt file in Chinese (above), click here.

For link to the Google Slides file in Korean, click here, or .ppt file in OneDrive here

For further reading on how Media Mentor Month came about, please see the links below:
Media Mentors, Not Media Police – blog post explaining the background to our first MMM, including research findings and book recommendations.
More Digital Parenting Conversation Ideas – myths about screen time and some healthy habits to foster.
Speaking to G12 about Digital Wellness – a video of my talk with WAB senior students earlier this year, highlighting potential positives and negatives of technology for their consideration.
Media Mentor 2019 – The second Media Mentor Month.
Media Mentor 2018 – Our inaugural Media Mentor Month!

Parenting in the Digital Age – 2019 edition

My colleague Daniel Johnston and I spoke to parents last week on the subject of Parenting in the Digital Age – a topic close to both of our hearts. We reminded those in attendance that we are personally invested in this topic and learning alongside them, as we are parents, as well as teachers.

For this presentation, we based a lot of our information on content available from the following sources:
Amy Blankson – an author and speaker, focusing on “Leveraging technology to help us be more productive, keep our sanity, and boost our happiness.”
Dave & Blake – presenters and speakers for My Life Online which aims to “teach kids to be
safe, smart & kind online.”

We encourage you to explore these sources, as they are full of great ideas to support students and parents.

Below is our presentation to parents. Please click on the cog below the presentation to access the speaker notes.

We also collated some resources on a Padlet, which you can see below, or access via tinyurl.com/gwas2019. We hope you find them useful!

More Digital Parenting Conversation Ideas

As part of #MediaMentorMonth, my colleague Daniel Johnston and I have put together some conversation starters for parents. We are always on the lookout for more great resources, so I am excited to share the following with you.

Dave and Blake are two presenters of My Life Online a series of workshops for schools around keeping kids safe and positive in their online interactions. The pair have recently released a 3-part video series aimed at parents, incorporating strategies that aim to improve conversations with kids and present information in a calm, non-sensational manner.

First up, is a video entitled “The 3 Habits Every Kid Needs to be Safe & Responsible Online.” In this video, they focus on helping kids make safe and good choices, on increasing empathy and on considering their online legacy. You will appreciate the easy to remember strategies to pass on to your children, and the fact that it is realistic advice, not the “Guess the right answer” type of advice that has kids cringing on the inside.

The second video in the series focuses on the 4 Myths about Screen Time and How it Affects Your Child. It addresses the myths that:

1. Social Media is a “Bad Thing”
2. Kids are addicted to their phones
3. Kids are losing their ability to socialise in person, and
4. Kids need online monitoring

Again, what I appreciate about their approach, is they are not demonising social media (which is not helpful in our digital world), but instead are giving parents approaches to improve communication and foster positive relationships with their child(ren).

Lastly, the third video centres around 3 Crucial Conversations To Have With Your Kids About Using Social Media.

One of the most practical tips they share in this video, is considering online posts on the following continuum: Helpful to Hurtful; Self to Others. This can be a great way of encouraging kids to see the impact of their posts may have.

Each video is about 15 minutes long, and well worth the time. I hope you find them useful!

Media Mentor Month 2019

Click image above to access A3 PDF

What is it?
Media Mentor Month is an initiative to help parents develop a positive relationship with their children around digital technologies. Just as we want to be mentors for our children in reading or having a healthy lifestyle, we also want to mentor them in their digital world too (see more details about being a Media Mentor here). The trouble is, sometimes we don’t know exactly how to go about that. Media Mentor Month provides parents with some ideas and strategies to help foster and develop that relationship.

Click here to access the A3 version of the Calendar.

Who is it for?
Anyone, really, but probably best suited to parents who are looking for direction to connect with their children around technology. Especially the ones who feel they only ever battle with their kids about being on screens too much (see more about that here).

When is it happening?
Ideally, March, so we’re all on the same page. Realistically? Any time that fits in to your family schedule.

What do I need to do?
You can participate as much or as little as you like. Personally, I would love to see you share some photos of your family engaging in the challenges. Make sure to add the hashtag #MediaMentorMonth so we can follow your progress!

Media Mentor Month

What is it?
Media Mentor Month is an initiative to help parents develop a positive relationship with their children around digital technologies. Just as we want to be mentors for our children in reading or having a healthy lifestyle, we also want to mentor them in their digital world too (see more details about being a Media Mentor here). The trouble is, sometimes we don’t know exactly how to go about that. Media Mentor Month provides parents with some ideas and strategies to help foster and develop that relationship.

Click here to access the A3 version of the Calendar.

Who is it for?
Anyone, really, but probably best suited to parents who are looking for direction to connect with their children around technology. Especially the ones who feel they only ever battle with their kids about being on screens too much (see more about that here).

When is it happening?
Ideally, March, so we’re all on the same page. Realistically? Any time that fits in to your family schedule.

What do I need to do?
You can participate as much or as little as you like. Personally, I would love to see you share some photos of your family engaging in the challenges. Make sure to add the hashtag #MediaMentorMonth so we can follow your progress!

Media Mentors, Not Media Police

It is a tricky thing to look at one’s own biases: it can make us feel somewhat vulnerable. In the case of screen time however, it is essential that we do so.

Professor Andy Przybylski (University of Oxford) opened the one-day event on Screen Time I had the good fortune to attend, by commenting on the very existence of the phrase “screen time”. Is there similar examination of “book time” or “food time” for example? There is an unfair rhetoric of analogue time being wholesome, good and entirely helpful, whereas screen time is seen as inherently bad, distracting, unhealthy and leading to nothing of value.

This ‘displacement hypothesis’ is such that every digital minute is seen as taking away from an analogue minute, with the insinuation that digital minutes are taking you further away from you being your best, most successful self.

Professor Przybylski argued that the evidence simply doesn’t back up this theory. Any correlational findings (remember, correlation does not equal causation) are so statistically insignificant they don’t justify focusing on – less than 1% variability in terms of correlational findings around sleep, health, functioning and behaviour.

So what does this mean for parents?

Simply put, there is an over-emphasis on limits and not enough focus on thinking critically about how we use screens, particularly how we use screens with our children.

Alexandra Samuel, using data from surveys of 10,000+ North American Parents*, found three main parenting approaches to technology: Limiters, Enablers and Mentors.

Limiters focus on minimizing access to technology.

Enablers put few restrictions on access to technology.

Mentors actively guide their children in the use of technology.

What is especially interesting about these approaches, is that for school-aged students, the children of Limiters were twice as likely to access porn, or post rude/hostile comments online. They were also three times as likely to impersonate a classmate, peer or adult (see Samuel’s article in the Atlantic for more information).

Likening the Limiter approach to abstinence-only sex education, Samuel argues, “Shielding kids from the Internet may work for a time, but once they do get online, limiters’ kids often lack the skills and habits that make for consistent, safe, and successful online interactions.”

Mentors typically make up a third of  parents overall, but Mentors are equally represented in each age range, suggesting that this might be an approach that works effectively throughout your child’s life.

What we like best about these findings is that they reinforce the idea that establishing and maintaining positive relationships with your children around technology is beneficial to everyone. We want our child(ren) to come to us if they encounter problems, knowing we won’t freak out or overreact. For this to happen, we have to show that we care about and value their digital world in the same way we show that we value their other activities, e.g. reading and sports.

Devorah Heitner, author of Screenwise, suggests, “Take an interest in what your kids do in their digital lives. Learn together with your kids. Play Minecraft with them or share photos on Instagram with them. Show them what you are doing online and ask them for advice about your Facebook posts or LinkedIn Profile. Your goal is not to become an expert in technology but to get a window into how your kids think about, and interact with, technology.“

With an awareness and understanding that no parent is all-Mentor all of the time, how can we engage in more Mentor-like behaviour with our children? How can we move from being Media Police, to being Media Mentors?

My colleague Daniel Johnston and I came up with a few suggestions, which we have organised into a March Media Mentor Month Calendar (see below).

Click image to access A3 PDF

We know as busy parents, it is unlikely you will get to all of these ideas (especially not only in March!), but we hope this provides a resource for you to explore and find ideas of activities to help you develop a positive digital relationship with your family.

Click to access a larger A3 PDF version

Please feel free to share your ideas with us in the comments below, or add the hashtag #mediamentormonth on social media posts.

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* “About the data: All the charts in this article are drawn from a series of surveys conducted on Springboard America and the Angus Reid Forum between March 2014 and February 2016. More than 11,000 surveys were completed by parents of children under 18; each individual survey sampled between 500 and 1000 North American parents.” Please note this data has not been made publicly available and is not peer reviewed.

Reducing Distractions on Digital Devices

Distractions are as old as time. Think back to high school when perhaps you were doodling on a pencil case or passing notes to friends. What is different is that the very tools that allow us to access such wonderful learning and communication opportunities, can also have the power to distract us.

In the presentation below, you will find ideas and suggestions on helping students develop good work habits, practice self-tracking, and also provide suggestions for parental monitoring – IF it gets to that stage. I hope you find something of value for your family.

We also have a Padlet where we are collecting your great ideas! Please feel free to add a suggestion.

 

Cross-posted at GreaTechxpectations

Parenting in the Digital Age

Being the first group of people to parent the iPad generation certainly is an adventure.

On the one hand, we are amazed by their capabilities to navigate between applications, create movies, build websites and FaceTime their grandparents. On the other hand, we may feel anxious about buzzwords like ‘screentime’, ‘game-addiction’, ‘distractions’ and ‘cyber bullying.’

Keep in mind that advances in technology have helped families in numerous ways. Here are some of our favourites:

• Communication – We can communicate quickly and easily with people around the globe via messages, email, FaceTime, FaceBook and instant messaging. In our international school setting, this is a huge benefit.
• Efficiency and Organisation – GPS has changed the nature of travel. We can find any address easily, even if we haven’t been there before. We can use apps to organise our shopping list, to sell our used goods, and let’s not forget do our banking.
• Learning – Now we can teach ourselves anything with the powers of YouTube, Pinterest and Google combined! Lost the rules to your board game? No problem! Need to change a tyre? Can do! Learning can be 24-7.
• Entertainment – It’s only in the last few years that Netflix came into being! Developments in movie and video distribution, the gaming industry and the explosion of apps means there is a little something for everyone when it comes to entertainment.
• Medical – At the consumer end of the scale, fitness monitoring is now built into many devices, and made it easier to be aware of the need to keep exercising regularly.

We are, however, realistic about the challenges facing parents too. We have put together a resource that has information, articles, and apps around common pressure points for parents. We have tried to provide a balanced perspective around some of these key issues so that you as parents can find an approach or strategy that best fits your parenting style.

We encourage you to keep the lines of communication open with your children. Inspired by the Key Jar, we have put together a list of questions that might help you begin some conversations with your child around some of these issues. Perhaps print them both off and mix them in together?

Common Sense Media has a lot of resources around parent concerns, so that is also a great source of information.

At the end of the day, each family is different, and you need to find the right combination of solutions to challenges that works for you. I hope these resources are a step in the right direction.

(Cross-posted at GreaTechxpectations)