On the Radio With Darren Part 2

It was a fabulous day yesterday talking with Darren, the host Richard Cloutier and his audience.

CJOB has the largest marketshare in Winnipeg so a guest spot on this station speaks to a wide audience. To hear the interview you can go to the Audio Vault and search March 31st 9 to 11 AM.

It is interesting to watch a radio show take place. All of the juggling the host has to do to stick to a time frame that allows the commercials to run, the information to be broadcast it was interesting to see.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

So there we were in the studio working twitter, the chatroom and interacting with callers and the host. Multitasking at its finest. THERE IS A WIKI WITH THE ENTIRE CHAT AND LINKS CAPTURED.

The night before the show I ventured into facebook where I rarely go. I put my status to online and started asking students questions. After doing this for a few minutes one of my former students told me to create a "note" and they could leave comments behind as their answer. Once again the student teaching the teacher. I created that note and some interesting results came in. 31 of my present or past students responded to the note and I thank them for giving me some really interesting information that I could share with the audience.

1. Are your parents on Facebook. If Yes are they part of your "Friends" and can see what you are doing?
22 students said that their parents were not on Facebook but 9 said that they were. Those 9 also had their parents as friends. Here were some of the responces from my students:

• yes they are on facebook, and my mom is my friend but I'm not going to add my dad lol
• No, but my mom uses my facebook, so basically yes she does see my profile and stuff I do and say.
• No, my parents are not on Facebook, although other members of my family are.
• Yes, my parents are on facebook, and they are a part of my friends list, but on limited profile .. teehee. ONLY because when they could comment on my things, the ALWAYS did and it got kind of annoying.

When Richard asked the audience to call in 3 members called in all with 13 year old teenage daughters. All three were into Facebook, and all 3 parents were at a different level of interaction with their teens Facebook use. The conversation steered around how as a parent you can keep track of your teens online use. Google Alerts was one suggestion by Darren.

My conversation with students on Facebook also revealed some new infromation.
2. Do you use MSN still? Is Facebook a replacement for MSN especially the chat part?
All still use MSN because of the chat feature. It was unanimous that the FB Chat was not as good as the MSN. They also served 2 different purposes. MSN for communicating and FB for glitz.

I would of thought that MSN was obsolete. The kids all used it for the ease of chat and the speed at which you can communicate. At school this year there seems to be less "MSN" related incidents. I might be wrong but I have not noticed "rumbles" or the administration dealing with students who have aired their beefs on MSN.

I also asked my students this:
3. Do you hide your computer use from your parents.... Do they know what you do online!!
Most of the respondents did not hide their computer use from their parents. But I would guess that parents have not seen what they have been posting online. MSN still is a place to chat, FB is a place to have a space. Both are used for communication but the missing piece in all of this is the cellphone. As smartphones become evermore popular they will take over the computer as the tech tool of choice. Already kids use them more than computers and as they become technologically more advanced they will shift many activities from the computer to the phone? I would also hazard a guess that students and laptops will be roaming the house working where it is convenient now where the "family" computer is. The callers also mentioned that they watch their kids on the computer. They asked what was going on but do they "really" know? Unless parents and teachers actively participate in social media they do not understand about life online.

3 computers - 3 geeks Flickr Photo by Dr Phil

Perhaps the most interesting part of the show was talking about this clip from Youtube. David after the Dentist. At the time of this post it had 17.5 million views!

The conversation steered from "How could a parent do this" to "Who Cares" the video will die and its 15 minutes of fame will disappear.

Let's look at the 2 points of view. Darren did a good job at a recent post. David's father took the video to show his wife who was unable to attend the event. He posted it up on youtube not thinking that there would be a problem. The problem occured when the video went viral. One innocent event now multiple repercussions. What could the parent of done differently?

• choose a less popular site to post the video.
• not posted the video.

The list is endless. How is David going to deal with this later in life. Will he always be known as the "Dentist" kid? One of the analogies used on the show was to think about village life. Up until a few years ago the village where we lived in was different that what we live in today. Back then very few people knew about your life in the village. Your sphere of influence was spread by word of mouth or perhaps radio or tv. Now in the world of the internet the planet is the village. Everyone anywhere can have access to you and your digital identity. David and his trip to the dentist is know from Winnipeg to Timbukto.

Uttercasth Target Practice Flickr Image by doughaslam

How are our students treating their digital footprint. They post pictures, and videos and use language that some find inapproptiate. The students digital footprint was the last question I asked them to comment on in my Facebook note.
4. Are you worried about the footprint you are leaving behind at facebook... the language, the pictures etc? The mighty armour of youth. Everyone replied that they did not care about the digital footprint that they are leaving behind. They did not think that what they were doing had relevance in the world and their future self. I hope they are right. I can only continue tell then how do be better digital citizens and hope some of them hear what I am saying.

North Sea (Sankt Peter Ording) Germany Flickr Image by Paraflyer

It was a great day on the radio. Thank you Richard Cloutier for getting it. One of the few who do!!