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How Young Is Too Young to Blog?

How Young Is Too Young to Blog?

Several weeks ago I had a conversation with a buddy of mine who works in a high school. He mentioned that juniors and seniors are required by the district to take courses in video editing (Final Cut) a photo manipulation (Photoshop). That means, there are 17-year-old kids coming out of school with the ability to do what many people in their twenties and thirties do for a living. Will this phenomenon sweep the rug out from industry “veterans?”

Thanks to a new initiative by the Scottish government, in the future, kids might learn how to blog – as young as THREE!

As part of a new literacy drive, students aged three to 18 can expect to learn about building Websites, blogging, podcasting and social networking.

According to Schools Minister Maureen Watt in Scotland, “They can reach a worldwide audience, so we have to teach them to do this well. We would be failing them if we just stand by and ignore these developments.”

According to recent studies, it is asserted that young Scots are falling behind their European counterparts because of their inability to speak foreign languages.

Forget verbal languages. These kids might be better equipped learning programming languages.

See Also
CNET experiments with content pruning

This is great for the youth of the world, but how will it translate to the workplace? As blogging know-how becomes more mainstream, can established bloggers expect to take a hit?

Learn more at BBC.

View Comments (7)
  • It’s always a good thing when kids are taught to become more familiar with modern technology. In high school, my sophomore english teacher had the class write responses to stuff on a class blog, and everyone at least feigned interest in posting things and having their views seen by all.

    As for future kids leaving high school with Photoshop/Final Cut skills, I very much doubt this will have much, if any, affect on the design world. It’s like saying that kids who take geography in their social science class are going to usurp the jobs of today’s cartographers. Sure, they’ll have passing knowledge of how to make stuff look cool with filters, but that doesn’t mean they’ll have the interest or determination to take a shot at professional design.

  • As home educator to my 3 kids, I think it is essential that I teach my kids the rudiments of online technology. They have a blog that all three contribute to, and they regularly conduct research via the net. They know how to upload to Flickr and how to make a voicethread. I’m more wary, however, of social networking at this point in time, but I’m sure that this will be something we tackle as they grow up. The internet is such an important component of contemporary life, and I only see it gaining in importance in the future. Not to train our children how to use it to their best advantage would be greatly remiss.

  • Workforce veterans (AKA Old People) who don’t acquire continuing education in emerging technologies have been prone to become obsolete in any age of history.

    The ones of us who do keep up have experience and maturity on our sides.

  • Blogging is a great tool for kids. My 3 year old has had a private blog since before he was born, since we live 1500 miles away from most of our relatives. Originally, I updated it, but in the last six months or so, he’s been doing some of the updates as a vlog. He really enjoys making the videos. I suspect in a couple of years that he may completely take it over.

    I think it’s really strengthened his communication skills and sparked an interest in reading and writing. He likes writing his own comments now, and it might take him 20 minutes to type out a short one, but I think it helped him make the conceptual leap that letters make words. Obviously, there’s still quite a bit of “Mama, how do you type this?”, but he can spell about 15 words on his own now.

  • wow! im happy for them and envious at the same time. how i wish this technology and learning was available to us decades ago. heheh ahead of my time, eh.

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