In case you missed it, two weeks ago I posted that I will be teaching a parent workshop on November 6 about Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Instant Messenger, World of Warcraft and various other popular Internet hang-outs for teenagers. There’s been enough response from you guys saying you’d like to participate in something like this that some of my youth staff and myself decided to stream the event LIVE online for anyone in the general public who wishes to participate. Here’s the direct link to where you can watch it on Ustream.tv. You’ll have to register for the site in order to take part in the chat room next to the live feed, which might be worth it since I plan to take a couple questions from Internet viewers. After general questions are answered, we plan to cut the feed in order to give privacy to our parents who may wish to ask more personal questions about their kids.

The workshop starts at 7:00 PM central time on Tuesday, November 6, 2007. If you can’t make time for the live event, Ustream.tv will also archive the video, so you can watch it later at that same address.

Here’s my tentative general outline for the meeting so far. Any input, suggestions, comments or ideas?

Overview

• Teen usage of the Internet
• Misconceptions
• Sexual victimization
• Cyber bullying
• How home life affects Internet life
• Statistics

Introduction to social networking sites

• What is a social networking site?
• MySpace demo
• Facebook demo
• Deviant Art demo

Introduction to media sites

• How broadband has changed the Internet
• YouTube demo
• Flickr demo

Introduction to Instant Messenger

• What is Instant Messenger?
• AIM demo
• MSN demo
• Yahoo! demo
• Trillian demo

Introduction to blogs

• What is a blog?
• Facebook/MySpace
• Live Journal demo
• Xanga demo
• Blogger/Wordpress demo

Introduction to MMORPGs

• What is an MMORPG?
• Why are they so addicting?
• What is the spiritual influence?
• What’s good about them? What’s bad about them?
• How much time is too much?
• World of Warcraft demo

Potential upcoming social sites

• Twitter demo
• Virb demo
• Ustream.tv demo

What happened to email?

• Why kids don’t use email to communicate with each other.
• How kids communicate now and why: PM, SMS, IM

Tips for the home: What should we do with this info?

• Strategic computer placement
• Communicate with your teen
• Learn from your kids
• Search Google
• Learn from their history
• Your relationship makes all the difference
• Shoulder surfing
• A better solution than monitoring software
• Join your kids!

General Q&A for Tim and a panel of students

Specific family Q&A (cut the live feed)

Here’s the promo video I made that will run in church services and be sent around online in various ways. Feel free to share it with others and tell people to watch the event on Ustream.tv on November 6 at 7:00 PM central time.

Posted on October 23, 2007