Nickelodeon’s Linda Ellerbee rocks!!

Nickelodeon will investigate autism in Nick News with Linda Ellerbee Private Worlds: Kids and Autism, which will air Sunday, April 22 at 8:30p. The episode will explore what it means to be autistic and the varying ways it can affect someone, as well as the different levels of severity, through the stories of real kids living with autism and their families.

Cynthia Turner’s Cynopsis - Cyn Kid 3/30/07

This really isn’t big news or anything new in the online community world– but I like the way Nickelodeon approaches subject matter worthy of attention.

I know, I know– I’ve always been that crazy lady who thinks we should voluntarily shield tough subject matter from kids until they ask about it. But, all in all, kids deserve to know the truth too…

Linda Ellerbee does a great job of being straight forward, understanding, and sincerely interested in the opinions of kids. Very cool. I’d love to see news go a little further for kids– like the BBC’s “Blue Peter/Newsround” with daily shows pertaining to information that kids find interesting as well as currant events and world opinions (stop US kids from being so self-centered and give them a view of kids around the world on a daily basis). Blend ME:TV with “Blue Peter’s Newsround” and put everyone’s favorite cartoons in the mix, and you’ve got a class act. (Just be mindful of the hosts– I don’t think I want to get into again, see rants: one, two, three, four).

One of my campers (Kimmy) was on the Linda Ellerbee special about weight, weight loss, being over-weight, and body image with Bill Clinton. She ROCKED! I was so proud of her. She had nothing but great things to say about Linda Ellerbee, and the program got great reviews all around.

Now… what I’D like to see is a Linda Ellerbee special about conquering ADD (Attention-deficit Disorder). Not just ADHD (Attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder)– but concentration & frustration of kids trying to achieve in school (without the hyper connotations). I was an ADD kid and I still sport some ADD tenancies, but I know how to work my rear off thanks to the guidance & support I got– not to mention, figuring out how to conquer ADD my own way. There is a way for kids to “own” their ADD, and in the end it is very empowering. After all, “nothing easily gained is worth having” and that includes success.

Friday is Stop Cyberbullying Day! (At least that’s the word on the street)

March 30: Participate in Stop Cyberbullying Day
by Andy Carvin
This Friday - March 30th - has been declared Stop Cyberbullying Day - by me. I’m hoping to get as many people, bloggers and nonbloggers alike, talking about cyberbullying, because it’s spinning out of control. Just ask blogger Kathy Sierra.I had high hopes for this week - there was so much to talk about. From the COPA ruling a few days ago to the new wiki that’s trying to become a competitor to Wikipedia, there were plenty of things worth covering. But all of it will have to wait, because I think it’s more important to tell you about Kathy Sierra…

PBS Teachers | learning.now . March 30: Participate in Stop Cyberbullying Day | PBS

Read that article– poor Kathy Sierra! Talk about scary!

Regardless, I have no problems with anyone declaring such a day… I support such positive movements!

In the mean time, also check out http://stopcyberbullying.ning.com/ — a community living on Ning.com dedicated to the end of cyberbullying.  Excellent effort.  Has anyone checked out change.org yet?  That’s another great site.  They should dedicate a page on there to cyberbullying… perhaps I will, if no one beats me to the punch.

UK Social Networking: Making friends online is good.

Ninety percent of British youth have access to a computer at home, and more than 60% of UK 13-to17-year-olds have profiles on social-networking sites, The Telegraph reports in its thorough, thoughtful article, “Can u speak teenager?” Like the New York magazine piece I linked to last week, this one reflects some interesting analysis occurring about how all this online socializing is affecting growing up now – and how it compares to the way we grew up. For example, we maybe had a few really close friends with whom we shared “everything.” The average teen now has 75 friends rather than 5, London School of Economics Prof. Sonia Livingston told The Telegraph. Today’s youth are connected to a whole community of peers. Closeness, intimacy, the sharing of secrets is distributed rather than individual and private. This gives new meaning to “strength in numbers.” And there is a “culture of openness” now that Dr. Arthur Cassidy, a psychologist at the Belfast Institute, told The Telegraph can be “particularly therapeutic for teenage boys.“

BlogSafety Community: ‘Distributed friendship’ …

So… will social communities like myspace/bebo/facebook/friendster become networks like MTV, Cartoon Network, Fox, etc? Strong outlets in a pop-culture filled diet? Pillars in society?

Is it possible for this social networking/online community era to outlast the terms of “fad” & “trend”? Can they stay edgy? Young? Interesting? Social?! Perhaps the aesthetic quality of the sites and the currant web-tools will be the trends/fads, and their networking/simple social core will last decades?

Time will tell. What do you think?

Tweens Rule: TV & Web

Tweens leading
No wonder tweens are in demand. Despite widely reported jumps in Internet usage, video games and other distractions for tweens ages 9-14, ratings are up 8% last year from 2002; among kids ages 2-11, they rose 7%, according to a Magna Global USA analysis of Nielsen data. So far this year, the 6-to-14 crowd watches on average 23 hours of TV a week, less than the overall population, Nielsen reports.

“Tweens are a hard-to-reach audience for (broadcast) networks, and therefore cable networks have been making it their sweet spot,” says Rachel Geller of youth-marketing firm Geppetto Group, which estimates the 8-to-12 set spends $51 billion. “Tweens are more like children” than teens: “They hold onto their loyalties much longer.“

Though Fox’s American Idol is tops among tweens (10% of its audience), the kid-focused networks increasingly are seeking older fans.

“Some of the networks want to grow along with their audience,” says Magna analyst Lisa Quan. “It’s the next step for them to try to keep loyal viewers from their younger years.”

Says youth-market researcher Irma Zandl: “Disney hit pay dirt with their tween programming,” even as “tween boys share many of the same TV tastes as their older brothers,” from MTV to ESPN and The Simpsons.

Networks “want to ingrain their brand name in (kids’) heads early on or risk losing them altogether,” says Kagan Media analyst Derek Baine. Programmers must figure out “how to use the online world to make sure their audience base isn’t eroded dramatically.”

That explains why their websites are among the most-visited. Nick.com, with its TurboNick broadband channel, drew 18 million visitors last month; Disney’s expanded online home, which includes movies and other properties, drew more than 19 million, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Cable TV rides the tween wave - USATODAY.com

What an AWESOME article!!! There’s MUCH more to it– so I suggest you take a wee gander. (Thanks to Anastasia from ypulse.com for locating this gem)

It’s so true! Tweens have the time to become Evangelists– they don’t have cars and they’re too old to beg for daily play-dates. Where else could they go to talk but online? The web gives them the opportunity to “own” something… feel acknowledged and empowered (even if that means lying and saying they’re a certain age to participate in social networking functions they shouldn’t be using).

They also crave acceptance– for someone to say it’s “okay” to be an awkward tween is HUGE (they’re like the middle child… the older kids get to do everything and the younger ones get all the attention). Do you remember your tweens? Mine were wretched– ugly ducklings everywhere, and weird school politics too! That’s why i LOVE Ned’s Declassified… gives tweens role models, and shows them that there are ways around problems.

There is a huge jump kids make the summer they leave junior high and head into high school. Freshman year is so tough for kids emotionally & physically– everything they know & understand is challenged. They are ushered into a confusing, harsh peer-ruled world of high school where they’ll be pushing limits & making decisions without their parents.

Granted, Junior High is tough on tweens too. It’s like a Caterpillar/butterfly scenario. Kids = Caterpillar– crawling around, playing in nature, exploring the world. Tweens = in cocoon, body changing/life changing/caged & anxious. 8th grade/summer before H.S. = slowly squishing & scrunching out of the cocoon. Freshman year of high school = wet wings/trying to fly.

It’s that cocoon that I find so interesting. Most tweens are caged in by school, parents, and a lack of freedom. They’re stuck in preparation for something big. Going to the movies with friends still sometimes means parents tag along, any free time at a mall is exciting.

They’re not kids anymore, and they’re not teens. They are the age group that REALLY look to peers for visual guidance, but in a very sincere/insecure way. They still want to trust their parents, and believe in magic (even if they won’t always openly admit it)… but they are starting to see the truth of both.

The sun is just below the horizon, it’s golden fingers stretching to the sky, shedding uncertain light on the structures of life that once seemed soooo sturdy & big. That’s quite exciting and scary… There is still enough time before the sun scars the sky for a tween to close his/her eyes and allow him/herself to believe– if not for a moment, that there are no shadows, and life’s structures are indestructible. You can’t blame a tween for wanting to believe. I still want to.

Pimp My Ride’s new addition to MTV’s Virtual Empire

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - MTV Networks said Wednesday it will launch a virtual world next week for “Pimp My Ride” to complement its online “Laguna Beach” and “Virtual Hills” offerings.The “Ride” world will be patterned after Van Nuys, Calif., a hotbed for car culture, and it will let users customize cars, participate in races and join car clubs, among other features. This world also will be connected to the “Laguna Beach” and “Hills” spaces by a virtual highway.MTV will add features to these worlds in the next three months, including guilds, where users can learn virtual skills; click-through e-commerce, which lets users buy real-world items through the virtual world; and MTV Virtual Cribs, in which users can build and customize their own houses.

MTV to pimp “Ride” online | Entertainment | Entertainment News | Reuters.com

Wow. They’re really diggin’ this “live the MTV” experience. I need to do more research for it. Anyone have anything to say about it???

technorati tags:viacom, Mtv

Rumorville: Harry Potter & the Graphic Novel?

Now that the title and release date for the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has been announced, much speculation has begun on what could happen next for the beloved series that many do not want to see come to an end. For example, one comic book site has a new article online asking if the Harry Potter books would perhaps make a good comic book or graphic novel series, in the form similar to the new Stephen King Dark Tower Comics. Newsarama let us know about a short interview they had with a rep from Scholastic (US publishers of the Potter books) if they had any interest in producing a Harry Potter graphic novel series for their Graphix line.

The Leaky Cauldron - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (book 7), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (movie 5) news, images, videos, podcast and more

Head to The Leaky Cauldron’s news site: leakynews.com (GREAT HP site, btw. I listen to their podcast regularly) and read what David Saylor of Scholastic/Graphix says. It’s barely a twinkle in an eye– but the mere fact that it was mentioned makes me curious.

First thought: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I feel like the Masterful Guru herself, JK Rowling, has said repetitively that she needs to move away from the series, and that she had contemplated Harry’s death just to ensure that no one else could pick up the pen in her steed. I agree with her.

Second thought: As a muggle wishing to be a wizard, oh the joy I would have in exploring HP’s world beyond ‘the boy who lived.’ Like, namely, what is the American school of Wizardry like? Where is it? What about other kids at Hogwarts– generations AFTER Harry, Ron, and Hermione?

I hope to be in London for the premiere of the next movie. I was in the selected-fan stadium seating around the Odeon in London for both of the 1st and 2nd movies (I was the only whacked-out adult without a kid in the crowd).

Oh the memories– I happened to recognize Cher when she showed up with the platinum do of ‘03. I chanted her name like a crazy person, and she came up, took my hand and said “Thank you.” I was the only one who knew who she was. Poor thing.

The camp counselor inside me managed to get the crowd of 8+ year old British children chanting:

Izzy: “Give me an H”
Crowd: “Haaaayshhh!”
Izzy: “Give me an A”
Crowd: “Aye!”
Izzy: “Give me an R”
Crowd: “Awwwwr”
Izzy: “Give me another R”

Crowd: “Awwwwr”
Izzy: “Give me a Y”
Crowd: “Y!”
Izzy: “What’s that spell?”
Crowd: “Arrrry Paw-er”

Or when Robbie Coltrane arrived and I managed to get the crowd chanting “Robbie, Robbie!” And our dearest Hagrid thought we were cheering for Robbie Williams. Oh bless.

I was amongst my people those two separate days in London– 2002, 2003.

technorati tags:Harry, Potter

UGC, Social Networking, Branding, and the future…

In the past year, more and more advertisers have flocked to social networking sites to promote their products to the tens of millions of users there, hopefully winning over a few influencers in the process. Burger King set up a MySpace page. The American Brewer, Anheuser Busch, is sponsoring MingleNow’s Clink section where the object apparently is to share photos of semi-inebriated community members. Others, like Southwest Airlines, Pepsi and Doritos, are going an extra step, asking consumers to submit ideas for the next ad campaign. The hope is that the homework assignment will get consumers to think creatively about the brands in their lives and potentially spur a series of user-generated spots worthy of the tube, or better, on YouTube.

Winning over the cool kids is no small task. Advertisers have been trying this for years, with varying results. The emergence of social networks, with their well-defined user profiles, makes the task of finding the influencers easier. But getting them to do a marketer’s bidding may actually be more difficult than ever. One of the biggest problems is getting their attention.

Teens and twenty-somethings may be multi-tasking masters, but they tend to be a suspicious lot when it comes to overt marketing messages. They can smell a product endorsement a mile away.

Social networkers go to MySpace and Facebook to chat with friends, not to champion brands. But, they do chat
about the things they are most passionate about, and often that means brands, cool brands. And, in this multimedia age, the web chatter can look just as slick as anything Madison Avenue produces. Case in point: as of this morning, there are 47,600 videos on YouTube dedicated to Nintendo’s gaming platform, Wii. That’s
influential.

Win friends and influence consumers-News-Tech & Web-The Web-TimesOnline

Ack! They’re on to us! At least Star Farm is ahead of the game with acknowledging our fans, allowing them to alter their content (as well as some AWESOME things behind the big red curtain that we’re itching to reveal for branding & online platforms).

When Cyberbullies get Expelled…

Four Sherwood Park junior high school students have been expelled and more than 20 have been handed out-of-school suspensions after creating fake Nexopia accounts of teachers and posting negative comments on the sites.

Nexopia is an interactive online community that is popular with teens. Users make profiles and can comment and rate other users on their profiles.

Four female students created profiles pretending to be two of the school’s teachers. Then more than 20 students posted comments on the profiles that were “derogatory, defamatory and libelous in nature” according to a statement released by Elk Island Public Schools (EIPS.)

According to Tanya Orr, spokesperson for the division, the four that were responsible for creating the profiles were expelled. Their future is now up to the board of trustees, who could send the students to another school, outreach program or a special needs school.The students who visited and posted on the site received suspensions that ranged from one to five days in length.

“EIPS does not tolerate student conduct that’s detrimental to the physical or mental well-being of others in the school,” said Superintendent Egbert Stang in the division’s statement.

Const. Rick Green, a school resource officer with the Strathcona County RCMP, said no charges will be laid as the problem was being dealt with at the school level.  He said RCMP did investigate the incident and it was the first time he has had to deal with such a matter.

“It was a first for me but hopefully a last,” said Green. “It was really disappointing to see.”

Green urged people not to use any type of communication with the intent to leave negative comments that could ruin a person’s reputation.

Sherwood Park News, Sherwood Park, AB

HA! “It was really disappointing to see”– if that isn’t an understatement.

Dear Teens,

The Web isn’t a Fort for you and your friends and your secrets.  It’s not a game where you make up your own rules.  And things that you say aren’t as temporary a something spoken aloud. 

When you post an inside joke, it’s no longer an inside joke.  When you post information about yourself– maybe one or two friends reply, but at least a hundred strangers (lurkers) have read it.

When you post or email pictures to one friend… you can GARUNTEE that picture is going to be passed to at least one friend, who then will pass it to at least another friend, and so on… down the line, until your entire school has seen your picture. 

Every action, every word, every sentence is read. 

So think before you decide to do anything.  Want to do something stupid like cyberbully? Well, good luck.  You’ll be busted and put through the ringer soon enough. 

Slowly now the Eye of Mordor has been focused on cyberbullying, and this is only the beginning.  The more stupid kids that engage in such activities, the more negativity will be unleashed PUBLICLY.  One day when you’re looking for a job… and your employeer does a background check you– it’s going to be common place to “google” your name.  And what will pop up?  Your nefarious behavior as documented by teachers, principals, parents, other teens, etc.  People don’t let people get away with vicious public behavior.  Good luck trying to explain that you were just being a “kid.”

It’s like tattooing inappropriate things to your skin– you can try and cover ‘em up with clothes or make-up, and you can even try to get it removed.  No matter how hard you try, that black mark of cyberbullying isn’t going to go away, and you’re going to have to deal with it until the day you die.

Sound harsh? Good. Get a clue. 

technorati tags:teens, cyberbullying

COPA: Sound the funeral Procession…

A federal judge on Thursday dealt another blow to government efforts to control Internet pornography, striking down a 1998 U.S. law that makes it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access “harmful” material.In the ruling, the judge said parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit the rights of others to free speech.

“Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection,” wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over a four-week trial last fall.

The law would have criminalized Web sites that allow children to access material deemed “harmful to minors” by “contemporary community standards.” The sites would have been expected to require a credit card number or other proof of age. Penalties included a $50,000 fine and up to six months in
prison.

Sexual health sites, the online magazine Salon.com and other Web sites backed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law. They argued that the Child Online Protection Act was unconstitutionally vague and would have had a chilling effect on speech.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a temporary injunction in 2004 on grounds the law was likely to be struck down and was perhaps outdated.

Critics of the law argued that filters work best because they let parents set limits based on their own values and their child’s age.

The law addressed material accessed by children under 17, but applied only to content hosted in the United States.

U.S. Judge Blocks 1998 Online Porn Law - International Business Times -

…as a million tiny little violins play in the background…

Well, it was a valiant attempt in the late ’90s. Sadly, no one was really enforcing it, not to mention– it only applied to us stateside.

Now if only the entire world could work together and form some sort of worldly-understanding of this “world wide web”…

Doin’ it for the kids!

What Is Locks of Love?Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers.

Locks of Love

I’m nearly at the 10 inch mark, and I counting down until I can cut it. If you don’t have long hair to cut, there’s always donations too.

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!

technorati tags:volunteer, locks, of, love, kids, cancer, help