What would you ask Tanya Byron?

Update 9th Feb: I took some of the questions suggested below, along with a range of others, to an Interview with Dr Byron last week – and the webcast of that interview is now available through the Young People in a Digital World conference website.

On Saturday, on behalf of WISE KIDS, I’m going to be interviewing Tanya Byron, author of the ‘Safer Children in a Digital World’ report (known as the Byron review), for a video keynote to be shown at the WISE KIDS – WISP (Wales Internet Safety Partnership) conference in Swansea taking place on the 1st of February.

With the recent launch by the UK Council on Child Internet Safety (created as a result of one of Tanya’s recommendations in the report) of the Click Clever, Click Safe strategy, it should be a good opportunity to find out how far the insights of the Byron Review have been taken into account in policy making, and what more practitioners thinking about the opportunities and risks to young people online should be focussed on.

But as well as capturing some of Tanya’s insights on policy and practice around online safety, all the conference team are keen to make sure we’re also getting Tanya’s insights on the questions that practitioners have.

So – what should I be asking in the interview?

I need to put together question ideas by 4pm Friday (22nd Jan 2010), so all quick thoughts welcome as comments, or tweeted on the #ypdw2010 hash-tag.

I’ll ask as many questions as I can, and responses will be shown at the Swansea conference, and we hope, through a new online Digital Youth Wales ning network to be launched very soon…

3 thoughts on “What would you ask Tanya Byron?”

  1. Question for Tanya Byron: I heard you speak at a conference in the US where you said you would like to see people stop talking about keeping kids safe online and actually doing it. What are some specific actions you would recommend to start?

  2. Tim, thanks for this opportunity to get some of our questions to Dr. Byron. I’d like to ask her about empowering youth. As Internet technology becomes increasingly mobile, adults won’t always be there to supervise. What are practical steps that parents, educators, and other can take to help youth be more responsible for their online actions?

  3. Would love to ask Professor Byron two things: (if it’s not too late).
    1) What does she think of writers / thinkers such as Jaron Lanier (virtual reality) who talks about and appears to be disgusted by the internet’s capacity to create a ‘hive mind?’
    2) Could it be that us + the internet = something that is neither technology or human, but an entity with emergent properties, perhaps that as a result might need a problem-solving approach that is radically different from either education or gatekeeping?
    I’m an older trainee teacher in ICT with a background in computing, philosophy and psychology and am very interested (as well as personally involved, having my own young children) in finding new ways of approaching this problem, while side-stepping the inevitable problems associated with going via large organisations to get backing.

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