Technology
When reading about technology the first thing I do is look at the publishing date. Noticing that this article was written in 2008, I take note to realize that it may very well be out of date in technology terms. Technology is always in a constant state of change. Stern points out that 1/5 of online teens kept a personal website and 19% of those kept a blog. According to a 2010 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, blogging for teens has actually gone down. What is growing rapidly is what they have listed as “micro blogging”. Which are the status updates on social networking sties. 73% of wired American teens us a social networking site, and 8% use Twitter. With technology constantly changing so does you online authorship. Youth aren’t creating webpage’s anymore; they are posting to their Facebook wall.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/
Education
When looking at online authorship through and educational lens we need to realize that with young people they are constantly changing. Stern does a nice job of explain how adults and young people differ in their online authorship. In my class I have seen firsthand students want to write a blog to either express themselves, or ideas related to what we are studying in class. They are excited at the beginning to post to a blog but the newness wears off quickly. What I have found works better for my students is using Google Docs. This suite of applications allows my students to express ideas with text, email, chat, and presentations. They are then able to share it with me or others and receive instant feedback. It is similar to Facebook with the instant feedback but not a true social networking site.
Society
Stern discusses how youth write for themselves. I would say they also post for themselves. They using posts to help them express themselves in ways that they normally wouldn’t express. She then states that you value “empathy and identification” the most (p.109). I believe this is true. When they post ideas to social networking sites it is for them. Technology has just made it easier for them to do this.
