Family Tech Blog

Tag: education

  • Kiddle is the Safe Search Your Family is Looking For 

    Kiddle is the Safe Search Your Family is Looking For 

    It’s next to impossible, once your kids reach a certain age, to keep them off of the internet completely. Schoolwork requires online research and so do many other activities that kids enjoy these days. What you need is a solution that will help you fully protect your kids while they search. That’s where Kiddle.co comes in.

    These days we need to be parents and educators in the online world as well as the real world. The internet is a great educational and recreational resource that can help children learn and satisfy their curiosity about life.

    The websites included in Kiddle search are recommended by educators, librarians and parents from across the globe as well as websites our own editors have used in schools or for homework within the K-12 age range. – Kiddle.co/internetsafetytips

     

    Kiddle is a safe search engine powered by Google. The beauty of Kiddle is that, for most searches, it features curated, kid relevant results. While google ad results do often show up first, they’ll be family friendly and related to the topic searched.

    Obviously, inappropriate searches are blocked with an angry looking robot telling you to try again. It will also filter out inappropriate results to searches that should be safe but sometimes aren’t. For example a search for some pop star they’ve heard of will produce results but the images shouldn’t be adult oriented and news articles about their indecent activities at the club won’t show up.

    What Parents Should Know

    Kiddle is branded and designed for children but it’s a good solution for your kid or teen who needs to do some research while you aren’t looking. I recommend using sites like Kiddle to help kids with homework so that you can be sure they’re only seeing results that are safe.
    Also, Kiddle has some pretty good advice and tips for parents and educators on their site as well. Just head over and take a look. I’m confident you’ll be pulling it up the next time your child has a science project or history paper due.

  • The Past and Future Combine with PBS Kids’ New 24hr Kids Channel

    The Past and Future Combine with PBS Kids’ New 24hr Kids Channel

    Our Young Kids are Learning from Screens

    The number of children who are viewing educational entertainment broadcasted to their home television grew by two percent over the past year. Most of those families are in lower income homes. PBS has always catered to that demographic with their free television content and now they’re extending that privilege to children. Starting today, January 16 2016, PBSKids will have it’s own 24/7 channel.

    Yes, Daniel Tiger, Peg + Cat, and Sesame Street will all be aired on a single PBS channel dedicated to children’s programming. The best part is that it isn’t just a channel, the content will be streaming on the PBSKids app that you probably already have. The online streaming content will also be free.

    PBS has said that they understand the need for educational television for those who can’t afford cable or satellite TV, while they also understand that the majority of children are watching their shows on smaller screens these days. The free broadcast/streaming content is unprecedented in a world where everyone is trying to convince you to pay this or that for their content. PBS is sticking to their model of educational entertainment for all. 

    The plan is to roll out the channel on 73 stations across the United States first and have 107 of the US PBS stations carrying the channel later this year. This will mean that free 24 hour children’s education content will be available to ninety percent of the homes in the united states. The streaming content on their app will increase the audience even further.

    Finally the plans include a Family Movie Night and integrating games into the show content. Characters will prompt the young viewers to further their educational experience by taking part in games and activities on the app that will correlate with what they are viewing. PBS says that research on children’s education has inspired this feature and that the feature will increase the opportunity to learn while consuming their content.

    What Parents Should Know.

    If you don’t already have the PBS App I recommend it for your younger children. The shows on the app are safe and educational and there are no ads or anything that would cause them to click away from the app. The games on the app are clean, safe, and fun. Learning is obviously the first focus of every show and game and short of a few annoying characters, you’ll feel totally glad your kids are getting their entertainment from the PBS App.

  • Mobile Device Vocabulary Lesson 2: Gaming (1)

    Mobile Device Vocabulary Lesson 2: Gaming (1)

     

    Smartphones and tablets have brought a whole new set of tools to game developers. It’s critical that you, as a parent, understand some of the language used in the descriptions of these games. Since you know your kids you’re the only one that can decide if a certain game is dangerous for your child or not. For instance, our oldest is pretty analytical and has an addictive personality. Because of these traits we are very careful how much time he has in front of a screen, especially in un-controlled, purely recreational activity. We know that he can get obsessive very quickly so we have some pretty strict boundaries on his screen time. Hopefully the following terms (the first three of six gaming terms) will help you better understand some game descriptions so you can pick the right ones for your kids.  (more…)