Call it a marketing hook, tween baiting, or young teen branding brilliance, Zwinktopia, the online virtual world that just launched Monday has leveraged their growth substantially by familiarizing kids with their avatar site Zwinky, first. Kids have been creating customizable Zwinky identities to plop on their blogs, profiles, IM and chat sites representing themselves for … [Read more...]
On the Edutopia site, you'll find a piece by Evany Thomas called Techno Prisoners, a first-person flashback from the author harkening back to 7th grade. (which I just forwarded to my 6th grade middle schooler for context that this stuff 'twas ever thus') It resonated with me, because at that age I remember being a new kid in town, and a 'blonde haole girl' to boot in Hawaii, … [Read more...]
Keeping my finger on ‘whassup’ in youth culture can lead to ‘life’s most embarrassing moments’ in a keystroke. Case in point? I stay apprised with what’s circulating the net using a handy tool called Top Viral Videos to see what’s clicking through with 6 million viewers and such. Einstein, the amazing talking bird and sweet otters … [Read more...]
The Age of Conversation is not only upon us, it’s within us, and it's coursing through my veins. Some of us are so passionate about this dialogue and excited about finding ‘intelligent life’ in the blogosphere that we simply can’t hush! When marketing gurus Drew McClellan and Gavin Heaton announced they were spearheading a collaborative eBook uniting … [Read more...]
When Steven Spielberg “raged against the machine” last fall about kids’ exposure to TV violence, I pinned the article on my bulletin board to remind myself that creating a media consortium like Shaping Youth that calls for our own industry producers to "get a conscience and a clue" is not entirely insane! After all, if the director of Saving Private Ryan … [Read more...]
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