16 year old Natalie Hampton of Sherman Oaks, California is receiving worldwide recognition for her creation of the new “Sit With Us” app. Her app was designed and aimed at reducing bullying and encouraging social interactions in the school setting. After her lonely experience of sitting alone during the lunch period of her entire seventh grade career,she wanted to create something that would allow students to remain anonymous but seek out friends when feeling alone as she did during lunch time! During an interview with NPR on their “All Things Considered” Program, she stated her reasoning for creating this app was because “it prevents kids from being publicly rejected and being considered social outcasts for their peers … This way it’s very private. It’s through the phone. No one else has to know. And you know that you’re not going to be rejected once you get to the table.” I was a guest blogger featured on the Future of EdTech News blog. Click here to read more about Natalie Hampton and how this news will affect children!
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Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org) is a community tool used to ensure that children, teens, young adults, teachers and parents know the pros and cons of various media mediums such as books, movies, television shows, apps, etc. This tool is a great “stand-in-gap” beneficiary for all who make up the “community” of learners in society as it provides insight to and answers the questions of some of the concerning aspects of today’s society. It hosts blogs and live feeds for parents and educators that promote for the well-being of all children and also offers lessons plans that can aid in adapting new methods and strategies for teaching children of all methods. My only suggestion for how to improve the tool would probably be to limit the tool to one category of information for the children, parents and educators alike. There is such a broad category of information which is good, but could possibly be overwhelming to a teacher simply looking up reviews for an app she is planning to introduce to her students in class on the next day, for example. I strongly believe that this tool is a wonderful asset to the community but, it should possibly be limited to one focus as it pertains to the media. I do not see this tool being used by young children, simply because tweens/teens, parents and educators will benefit more from the information this website has to offer. The screen-time limits for the older children that do use it, though, would only be when researching or doing background on say, the latest app, such as Pokémon Go and the pros and cons of using such an app. The background researching could take a bit of time, so parents/teachers must be sure to monitor this sort of thing so that they are not sitting in front of the computer for an excessive amount of time. |