Internet Safety and Child Bloggers. Is It Safe?
Internet safety is a huge concern for most parents. And with over 6 million underage children writing blogs, according to WiredSafety.org , internet safety should be any parents #1 priority! Blogging can be a great opportunity for children, but it can also be a huge safety risk if the child isn’t monitored or informed on proper internet safety. Here are some tips and ideas to make sure your child is safe while blogging:
How can you keep your children safe while blogging online.
If you decide that it’s a good idea for your child to blog, there are several things that can be done to help insure their internet safety. Make sure to talk to you children about things such as not using any personal info and password protection. Its also very important to monitor your child’s blog on a regular basis, read the content and comments, follow links, read friends’ blogs. Don’t be afraid to ask to see all content before its posted, and discuss topics so that your child has a clear idea of issues that could arise from them.
Are there any benefits to letting your child blog?
There are several benefits from regular writing such as improved writing, communication, and social skills. Having a forum to express their thoughts is a great way for children to learn and grow, but is a blog the right forum? Many schools encourage children to keep a journal to record their thoughts. And many children have access to sites such as MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook where they can network and share while still having control over how much others can view. Regardless of the benefits of blogging, internet safety should always be a parents #1 priority when considering if their child should blog.
Ultimately it’s a parents individual decision on whether its safe and acceptable for their child to blog. But if your child wants a blog, make sure you’re informed and involved!
Grammar 101: How Proper Does it Need to Be Anyways
“C u l8er dood”, “brb”, “ttyl”. Is that proper grammar? If you’re one of thousands who have turned to social media as your primary form of communication then you may think that it is. And if you’re like me, a long time writer but blogging newbie, then this new fangled take on grammar might just make you want to scream.
Where oh where has good grammar gone:
With so many different types of social media available from web gaming such as World of Warcraft, to social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, “web speak” is becoming more and more common with proper grammar falling to the way side!
Why improper grammar is acceptable in social media:
The idea behind social media content is to get your point across as quickly as possible, using as little words as possible and ignoring the rules and guideline of proper grammar. And when blogging its easy to fall into the habits we have learned sending messages on Twitter and Facebook, which seems to be ok.
How important is proper grammar anyways:
While it is important to be able to clearly get your point across, in social media you don’t necessarily need to adhere to all grammar rules. its your blog and should reflect your moods, ideas, thoughts, and speech patterns. Pay attention to your audience though! If your blog is aimed at young teens, video gamer, or the average blog reading crowd it may be acceptable to bend the rules of grammar a bit. But if you’re righting for a technical or medical blog, try to pay more attention to sentence structure, tense, and using correctly spelled word.
Blog Topics: How To Pick one and Make it Clear
Do you have any idea what a topic sentence is or why your blog needs one? Do you even care? Well, you should!
Blog Titles - Site Titles - Post Titles
Many blog writers take a very casual approach to their writing, twisting grammar rules, punctuation, and sentence structure to mimic they communicate. Its your blog so you are free to do with it whatever you like, but if you are interested in having regular posts with a steady stream of traffic its important to make sure that you are sticking to topics in your niche and being clear about exactly what that topic is!
So, what are you talking about again? (more…)
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