Will Richardson posted today that Nickelodeon and Disney are entering the social networking market. Their target is the under-14 crowd. Nickelodeon’s site launched in January. Disney’s is still in beta. Will links to an article at USA Today that provides a comparison table.
I plan to spend some time checking these out. Many of our students use Neopets and Club Penguin so I’ve been thinking I need to go check them out. Now I have four sites to check out. I am wondering if/how I’ll need to revamp our internet safety strand in our curriculum in response to these sites. This year, it seemed that few of our third graders spent much time online. That seems to change over the year. Last fall some fourth graders knew what chat and IM were. Most of the fifth graders knew and at least half were using those tools. I predict that is all about to change with Disney in the game.
I don’t think that kids under 14 need to be using Facebook etc. But I think that websites used by kids 14 under, such as Disney,entering the social networking market is a good idea. It’s a safe environment for kids that are under 14.