Tech-induced mini generation gaps?

That's what the New York Times's Brad Stone has noticed, citing examples like his only-just-verbal 2-year-old calling his Kindle – a device he says he's not completely sold on – "Daddy's book." But even 9- or 10-year-olds wouldn't call it that – it wasn't ubiquitous enough when they were "growing up." Now all sorts of Kindle-like handheld readers are coming out. They – the Alex, the Que proReader, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, the tablet Apple's supposed to announce soon, and the "smartbooks" aimed at teens I blogged about earlier – were all over the Consumer Electronics Show floor in Las Vegas this past week, Stone and Nick Bilton report in another article. But, to the generational question, I wouldn't call them mini generations just because the term itself suggests solid starts, stops, and gaps that I'm not seeing, even at my house, with five years between two teenage and almost-teenage kids. The whole construct doesn't allow for all the individuality and diversity so evident in young people's (and everybody's) use of new media and technologies. I think kids' tech use has more to do with their interests (and those of their friends, of course) than their ages, and I'm seeing more social flow across age groups in this generation than in mine. I guess what I'm saying is that it's not the technology that dictates kids' tech use so much as the kid who uses the technology (and not entirely either way). If that was clearer than mud, argue with me – here or in the ConnectSafely forum!

And as for these new "books," I don't care what devices we get into school, but we do need to get social media into school, pre-K through 12, all classes – to narrow the gap between formal and all the informal learning kids are doing with social media outside of school, make school more relevant and interesting to students, and get school doing for social media what it has done for books for hundreds of years: guide and enrich students' experiences with them (see "School and social media: Uber big picture"). I'm pleased to see others saying this too now. Here's Nicholas Bramble in Slate: "Schools shouldn't block SNS." [See also "From digital disconnect to mobile learning" and "School & social media."]

A SpongeBob-approved netbook for kids

media companies. Now a "real" computer company, Dell, is coming out with one - and it even looks age-appropriately slimy. "Dell has taken one of its Inspiron Mini models – essentially, a basic netbook computer – and allied with Mr. SquarePants’s television network to create the Nickelodeon Edition," the New York Times's Gadgetwise blog reports. Apparently, the (plastic) green-slime look was SpongeBob's idea. The Times adds that the Nick-edition netbook will probably cost a little more than the basic $300 model, which goes on sale in October at Wal-Mart and Dell's online store. Online safety is a big focus for this product, Newsfactor.com reports. It says Dell's saying "it's safe for kids to send and receive email and chat with new friends. The system includes a 15-month subscription to McAfee Family Security, which provides comprehensive parental controls to carefully direct and monitor kids' online activities." Of course it will have Nickelodeon content, but there's a strong educational focus too, with Dell's partnership with Whyville.net, a virtual world for kids 8-15 that will have an animated link right on the netbook's screen. See "Dell nurtures a virtual life for youngsters" at CNET for details on how a virtual world can make learning about nutrition a lot of fun. Here's Whyville's five-minute video tour on YouTube.

New DSi = new iPhone for kids?

That's what the Youth Trends research firm's calling this third version of Nintendo's handheld game player. "The $170 DSi fully embraces the two biggest trends in gaming: customization/personalization and multi-player interactivity," writes its Gen Digital blogger. By customization, the blog's referring to all the little features that are putting the new DSi in competition with the iPod Touch - 2 easy-to-use built-in 0.3 megapixel cameras, photo editing, game downloading, music recording, wi-fi, and Web browsing - features that I think do make the DSi (with its 850 games to choose from and not so many to download yet) just that much more attractive to young gamers. Interestingly, with this device, Nintendo's targeting "women, adults, and non-gamers," according to Wall Street Journal blogger Courtney Banks, but her review makes it sound like those users would much prefer the iPod Touch's better Web and photo-sharing functionality (browsing on the DSi is very slow, she couldn't play video, and "any time I attempted to load Gmail I was greeted with an "insufficient memory error" message).