A Parent's Guide to Facebook

I know that Facebook is a huge part of our social culture.  But, many parents struggle with how to guide their kids because their kids are usually one step ahead of them on the learning curve.  The annotation below has several links that can help parents with this social media.  I hope you find this helpful.

Connect Safely - A Parents' Guide to Facebook

via Free Technology for Teachers by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) on 11/8/10

Connect Safely, a resource reviewed last year on Free Technology for Teachers, has just released a new 32 page guide to Facebook for parents. A Parents' Guide to Facebook is a soup-to-nuts guide to Facebook privacy settings, profile settings, group settings, and more. For parents who "just don't get Facebook" the guide offers great explanations of the appeal of Facebook for teenagers and what teenagers do on Facebook.  The guide provides a run down of recommended settings for teenagers and explanations of what those settings mean.

H/T to Sylvia Martinez for the news about this guide.

Applications for Education
If you occasionally find yourself fielding questions from parents about Facebook and social networking, A Parents' Guide to Facebook is a good resource to refer them too.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Phishing Detection Education
Zilladog - Kid Friendly, Parent Monitored Email
Safe Computing Tools for Kids - Windows Based

Sending Large Files on the Internet

My wife, Kristi, is the media specialist for Shepherd Public Schools.  She shared the information below with me, and I thought it might be good to post for everyone.  I hope you find this helpful!

Sending Large Files on the Internet

Have you ever needed to send a file to someone electronically and the file was too large to email? With the close of the semester or grading period nearing, large files that represent a culmination of the term’s assignments or projects may need to be sent via the Internet. Whether the file is a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation, spreadsheet, video or audio file, sending these files via email is problematic due to content filters and file size limits. There are several resources that you can use to send a file to someone via the Internet if emailing a very large file is not permissible.

One of the those services is Dropbox.  With Dropbox, you can upload files and access them via any computer that is connected to the Internet. If you are collaborating with others, you can share folders or individual files bypassing email filters or file size limits. It is free, quick and easy to use Dropbox. You can install the Dropbox app and easily move files into your online Dropbox without navigating to the Dropbox website by using their application. The free Dropbox is limited to 2GB of space and if you share Dropbox with others, you can get an additional 250MB of space. If you sign up with a .EDU email, each person that you refer to Dropbox will earn you an additional 500 MB of space instead of just the 250 MB.

There is an app for Dropbox! You can sync your files and access them anytime, anywhere via the internet on a computer, iTouch, iPhone, iPad, etc.

Author’s Note: If you are interested in signing up for Dropbox, I would greatly appreciate the extra space earned if you use my personal referral link although it isn’t necessary to use this link to begin using Dropbox: http://db.tt/dHoct9T. (This is not Kristi's link... It is from the original source on the Discovery Educator Network.)

DropItToMe

DROPitTOme is a service that is used with a Dropbox account. DROPitTOme allows you to send files to your Dropbox via email. Once you connect the service to your Dropbox, you will receive a personalized email that allows you send attachments that are posted to your Dropbox. The service is easy to use and setup and most importantly, is also free to use!

(Source: Discovery Educator Network. "DEN Blog Network - December Ed Tech News You Can Use." Message to the author. 6 Dec. 2010. E-mail.)