commonsensemedia.org

Commonsensemedia.org is a fascinating web site, there’s so much to look into with reviews and articles about all the various media that young people use or could use but with a parent or educator’s point of view. One feature which I felt was really a smart thing is the things “families can talk about” section of each review featured here. My wife and I frequently will check out a Christian web site provided by Focus on the Family to get movie (and sometimes other media) reviews to see if it’s something we want to see and they provide positive and negative elements as well as other considerations but no specific area that shows how the movie, etc… can be used as a point of conversation between you and your children. (www.pluggedinonline.com) I hope that the people at Focus on the Family might add something like the above to their reviews also.

It was also nice of this site’s creator to have the green, yellow, and red indicators with age appropriateness on each review as well to indicate the level of appropriateness. It was strange then though to see that some of the green ‘go’ and yellow ‘’ labeled sites still came with some pretty strong warnings of inappropriate features especially with web sites. I want to not be an alarmist when it comes to the technologies of web 2.0 but, some of the sites I found here were a bit disconcerting from what the reviews told me and I could understand a little better why some parents are a little gun shy on this topic. I’m glad I’ve taken courses like this and other similar ones as its good to have reminders that there exists a whole plethora of constructive and creative outlets for young people and adults for that matter.

This web site is simply so useful to both public and school librarians alike can use this as a kind of advisory tool to locate web sites to suggest to teens which, they can use to meet their information and entertainment. It could also be a helpful resource to the librarians themselves when doing collection development so they select those media which best meets the patrons of their library. As a school librarian I also liked that they have resources which appear to help you develop an appropriate media policy for your school that’s sensible but, it’s hard to say much beyond that about it as you have to buy the educator’s kit to really learn more.

Lastly, I’ll just comment a little on the resources for parents. This incidentally is something that librarians at either public or school locations can recommend to parents who express concern about their kids using the Internet. There are some really good videos and articles for them to take in and think about with regards to the many media inputs in their children’s lives. It’s great that the developers of the site thought to make this information accessible by age range and topic as obviously, what’s suitable information for one age of the youth spectrum may not be for another. The advice too isn’t preachy and leaves room for the parents to decide, it just gives them points to consider. I think I can best sum up my thoughts on commonsensemedia.org by saying; this is one site I think I will add to my delicious account for future reference-good stuff!