How to Parent in a Digital World: Resources
Family Minecraft Policy (Google Docs version here)
Family Support Form Responses (copy this to your Google Drive so you can adapt it to your family’s needs. For help, see How to copy a Google Form)
iOS 12: Getting to Know Screen Time & Stronger Parental Controls (for iPhone/iPad)
The Complete Guide to Setting up Parental Controls in Windows
How to use Parental Controls in Windows 8
How to Use Parental Controls in OS X to Protect Your Kids
4 Ways to Set up Parental Controls on Your Home Network
Parental Control Tools That Cover Every Device In Your Home
Another setback for political science
Yesterday I finally received my doctorate. The actual piece of Latin-inscribed paper showed up at my door care of Fedex (classy move, Harvard!), officially licensing me in the practice of political science. Yesterday was also the deadline for submitting proposals for...
North American Summit on Citizen Engagement: Day 3
As posted on Cairns: Our last day began with a panel of elected politicians discussing the role of civic engagement in their work. Listening to their experiences and comments, I was struck by how much of the burden of civic engagement seems to be laid at their feet....
The 49th Parallel looms large at the North American Summit on Citizen Engagement
As seen on Cairns: I spent the bus ride up to Whistler doing a Q&A session on the Canadian legislative process for an American visitor. He was – like many Americans I’ve met – more apologetic than necessary for his lack of knowledge about Canadian politics. I’m...
The North American Summit on Citizen Engagement: Day 1
As posted to Cairns: Today was the first day of the North American Summit on Citizen Engagement, sponsored by The Whistler Forum for Dialogue. It’s a remarkable gathering of experts, practitioners and thoughtful commentators in the field of public engagement and...
Better than Blogging?
As seen on Cairns: In the course of writing a recent story on e-campaigning, I had an interesting conversation with Michael Cornfield about the blogging phenomenon. Michael is the politics guy at the Pew Internet and American Life project, and a great source of wisdom...
A download button that works
download Firefox immediately. Where will this madness lead? "Submit" buttons that submit your form, without asking you to please reformulate the syntax for your birthdate or street address? Help numbers that connect you with actual live helpful people? Fellow fans of...
Bad sharers
Looking for a snapshot of how the war against terrorism is hurting the Internet? Check out the letter that ran in the Circuits section of today's New York Times. To the Editor:''Where Good Wi-Fi Makes Good Neighbors'' (Oct. 21) did not take into account two serious...
Social capital for beginners
The Encyclopedia of Informal Information has a very nice overview of social capital. For anyone who wants a quick intellectual history of social capital as an idea, and a quick peek at some of the key findings to date, this is a great place to start.
The morning after the night before
Less than twelve hours since victory seemed uncertain, and the Bush camp is already spinning the heck out of its big victory. What I don't understand is why the media is swallowing the line about this being an historic victory. I just caught a CBC-Radio teaser,...
Blogging as an engagement tool
As posted to Cairns: The UK's Hansard Society has produced terrific research on e-democracy under the leadership of Prof. Stephen Coleman (also of the Oxford Internet Institute). This summer they released a paper that looks at how blogs can be a tool for democratic...









