![\"\"](\"http:\/\/learningworksforkids.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/boston-globe-kids-playing-with-iphone-2.png\")
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I was at the weekly meeting of the Kiwanis<\/a> club I belong to this morning, listening to a presentation about the College Bound program<\/a> within the Oceanside School district. \u00a0During the course of the presentation, the topic of kids and their use of technology and social media came up. \u00a0We were reminded that as parents we are in control, and should take away the phone, turn off the media, etc. \u00a0I sat there sighing and nodding. \u00a0Yes, my kids are on the phones too much.<\/p>\n At the same time, in my professional career, I’ve spent the last several years crafting an IT strategy to enable employees to operate regardless of where they are located. \u00a0There are still pieces to put in place, but we’ve been making good progress. \u00a0The largest challenge I face is adoption of some of the capabilities. \u00a0For instance, we have Skype available, but how can I drive adoption of the technology? \u00a0Colleagues I’ve spoken with have indicated how empowering such a tool can be. \u00a0One person I spoke with has now gone entirely remote as they are actively online with video and chat all the time. \u00a0There is little advantage to being in the same office. \u00a0Now, that is an extreme case, but a number of companies (and their employees) could probably benefit from less time commuting and coming into an office that can, at times, be quite distracting and wasteful. \u00a0However, in my particular case, operating online in this way is entirely foreign. \u00a0Most of the folks in my company are not comfortable operating in the virtual world to such a degree. \u00a0They can handle email (the bane of all IT managers), but texting? \u00a0IM? Video chat? Not at all.<\/p>\n So, after the talk this morning, the dissonance of these two situations struck me. \u00a0Perhaps we are really looking at this the wrong way. \u00a0Kids are drawn to the online world. \u00a0Yes, they can do wrong things there. \u00a0They can waste time. \u00a0But that happens at my office as well. \u00a0In fact, there are some folks I work with who love to walk into my office to tell me something about their personal lives that I didn’t ask about, usually right when I’m in the middle of something. \u00a0What if, instead of limiting the time kids spend on their devices, we teach them how to use them to become effective collaborators, and to become more efficient at accomplishing the “important stuff.” \u00a0In some ways I see that happening without adult intervention. \u00a0My youngest loves creating slime<\/a> (if you have a 12 year old you probably understand, if not, be happy). \u00a0So, she works with her friends via FaceTime and SnapChat to develop new recipes and variations. \u00a0She is collaborating in a way that I can’t get my colleagues to. \u00a0I plan on asking her how often, if ever, she does homework with her friends via FaceTime. \u00a0My 20 year old takes a fair number of online classes at her university. \u00a0I wonder how often she is in the same boat.<\/p>\n I throw this out there as a conversation starter. \u00a0I may think about this some more and decide that I’m completely wrong, as I’m not convinced that I’ve got this right either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was at the weekly meeting of the Kiwanis club I belong to this morning, listening to a presentation about the College Bound program within the Oceanside School district. \u00a0During the course of the presentation, the topic of kids and their use of technology and social media came up. \u00a0We were reminded that as parents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infosynergetics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}