Ted’s been enjoying Orkut . I’ve looked over his shoulder a few times at all the faces of his friends. Today as I was putting Elisabeth down for her nap, I had her wave good bye to Ted, who was looking at Orkut in his office.
And I thought to myself – hey, this would solve the classic homeschooling socialization dilemma – let’s put Elisabeth and all our kids on Orkut! I can see it already, her cute baby face in a square there with the others…”female, single..” 🙂
Ted wasn’t too keen on the idea. But it got me thinking. Ted and I have talked a bit about Orkut and these other on-line networks. I asked him how many of these connections were completely virtual, people he’d never seen face-to-face. I still think it’s a bit strange to call someone a “friend”, someone whom you’ve never met in person or “breathed the same air”, as I said. But Ted seemed to think that “it’s like pen pals” – in times past people wrote paper letters, and built friendships that way, while now we can connect electronically.
I’ve gotten a couple invites from friends to iChat; since I don’t have the camera on my computer, we’ll have to coordinate with Ted’s work schedule. I think one of the big reasons to iChat would be for our kids to connect. These friends email and blog with Ted and me but it would be fun for our little ones to meet via video in cyberspace.
And as I’ve experienced this week from joining some homeschooling yahoogroups, many moms out there are seeking friends for their kids via on-line communities and relationships. Plus our kids are already wanting to write emails to people, and blog too: it seems second nature to them, ’cause they see mommy and daddy do it all the time. Through blogging I’ve met a few others with children, and it’d be fun to arrange on-line playdates of sorts for our little geeks oops, ones 🙂 Kids also socialize on-line and an Orkut for Children could facilitate more connections .
So as I think about it, I’m wondering, would there be a place – with parental involvement and protection, of course – for some kind of Children’s Orkut? Or is there already something like this out there? It’d be fun for socialization, if it could be safe.
