Tech at the Table Twitter Chat

Join The Family Dinner Project and co-hosts Common Sense Education, Raquel Goodrich of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, and Susan McCormack of Creating Community Solutions for a Twitter Chat about technology at the table!

As the summer rapidly approaches, kids will have more out-of-school time, which can often mean more time spent using digital devices and plugging into screens. Both families and educators can take an active role in helping kids manage responsible technology use during the summer months, and engaged adults can make a difference in not only the quantity of tech use but also the quality. Are there ways to use technology to improve kids’ social-emotional well-being, especially when they’re not at school every day? Can the family dinner table be used as a place to moderate tech use and help the whole family make better choices? Can technology contribute to home-school relationships and improve family communication? We’re inviting the experts to help us answer these and many more questions during this special online event.

The chat, “Can Technology and Healthy Families Mix?” will take place on Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 9 p.m. EST. We invite educators, parents, teens, and anyone who is interested in championing responsible and positive use of technology to join in the conversation by following the instructions below:

• On May 21 at 9 p.m. EST, log in to Twitter using your computer or mobile device. Your Twitter account must be public in order to participate; tweets from private Twitter accounts cannot be shared.
• Our moderators, @FDP_Tweets, @RaquelGoodrich, @Sueamccormack and @CommonSense, will pose questions using the hashtag #fdpteachers. Each question will be numbered “Q1, Q2, Q3…”
• To respond to the questions, simply type your response in the form of a tweet beginning with the letter “A” and the corresponding question number (“A1, A2, A3….”) and end each tweet with the hashtag #fdpteachers.
• Select responses will be retweeted by @FDP_Tweets.
• To see the entire chat, enter #fdpteachers into the #Discover bar on your Twitter homepage, and select “All” to view every question and response in the chat.
• Another way to view the entire chat is to use www.tweetchat.com alongside your Twitter account. Enter the #fdpteachers hashtag into TweetChat, and view all questions and responses in a livestream format.

During the chat, we’ll be covering topics including:

• How to set reasonable limits on technology use, especially during out-of-school time
• How schools and parents can work together to use technology for positive gains
• Whether technology can contribute to social-emotional well-being
• Using the family dinner table as a platform for teaching good digital citizenship

And many more important questions and concerns from parents and educators. We hope you’ll join us to talk about Tech at the Table on May 21!