I’m starting a new project. I have no time to really be doing this but it means that much to me; and I know it will have an impact, so I’m doing it. First the backstory. It started with an email I sent to the superintendant of our school system. It went unanswered. Here’s a few excerpts:

Dear ____ It’s been awhile since we last talked, the most recent being when we held a social media summit meeting in your office with some of the other “social media” people in our area….

…I continue to think about the impact that digital and social have on our kids. In as much that my children, are pretty heavy users, I’d like to think that I’m better than most parents at monitoring their usage; and that’s what scares me. I have come to the realization that the digital environment in which kids swim in is downstream as their parents swim upstream. We need to fix that

I don’t have the answers right now but what I do know is that there has to be an approach that leverages what we learn from their usage versus what they learn while at school and what parents learn on their own. There is a definite gap. Eventually we won’t be able to escape BYOD in the school sytem, but beyond that, where I think the gap is largest is in a lack of understanding of the mediums and the platforms, their impact and their implications.

I write this as someone who cares not only about my kids but also the kids of parents who just don’t know. I see a lot of kids, mine included, who sometimes don’t handle social properly, understand the impact of social and don’t realize the search implications of social. We have to fix this….