Lil' Techies

Twittering for kids

Jen — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:41:46 +0000

Tori Spelling (actress, reality TV star) has opened a Twitter account for her 3-year old. She is actually getting a lot of grief for this, possibly because she has made it available to the public (and the fact that he is not actually writing the tweets, but they are written in his name).

I think it’s a great idea–kids are so funny at that age and documenting their cuteness never hurt anyone! Beyond that, I started to think of how Twitter could be useful for older children in a controlled and parent-monitored environment.

An account for kids would have to be kept “private”.
The email address given to Twitter would have to be a parent’s address so that “follow” requests could be monitored.
If grandma, grandpa, mom or dad are also using Twitter, the followers could be limited to these people.
To keep the child’s interest, followers would need to be supportive, such as responding to their tweets and writing directly to the child.

Possible Concerns

The trending topics might not always be age-appropriate
Spammers could still @ your child’s account
Hackers

Traveling With Gen Z

Jen — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:08:13 +0000

My kids will spend an entire car trip hooked up to DVD players, iPods or gaming devices if I let them. This seems to be typical of Generation Z, who are digital natives born in the age of on-demand entertainment. I actually took time during our latest trip to teach them how to look out the window.

To encourage them to window-watch, I used technology in advance of the trip. We sat down and searched Google Images for things they might see on their upcoming travels, like silos, lakes, windmills, and cityscapes. I printed out these pages for them to color when we saw one and make a little booklet for them.

For other ideas on using the Internet to encourage non-tech travel, try MomsMinivan.com:101 Car Game and Road Trip Activities.

Kids Learn From Comics

Jen — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:11:24 +0000

I know this to be true as my boys have developed a very large vocabulary from the exciting adventures of Batman and Astro Boy. They are also inspired in their play by the magical world of superheroes, fantasy and adventure! NPR talks about it today as well:

Enrich Your Nerd Power: What Kids Learn From Comics
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/04/it_pays_to_enrich_your_nerd_po_1.html?sc=fb&cc=fp

Generation M2

Jen — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:44:30 +0000

The Kaiser Family Foundation released a report, Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8-18 year olds, showing that 24 hour media access (cable kids stations, home video games, cell phones, social networking, etc.) has dramatically increased the time 8-18 year olds spend with technology (about 10 hours a day!!).

What’s “browsing”, Mom?

Jen — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:04:35 +0000

I use a laptop and am often sitting on the couch “browsing” while the boys are nearby coloring, playing games or watching me “browse”. At the times when the boys are watching me surf the net, I alter my searching a bit to include things that might interest them, for example, doing an image search in Google for “Rhino” or other superheros.

In these browsing sessions, I like to think the kids are little sponges soaking in all the capabilities of the Internet as they watch me move around the web. Using the philosophy of teaching by modeling, the kids are learning:

To use the keyboard
That the Internet has a wealth of resources on every topic
How to form a search string
Basic internet literacy (links, images, searching, URLs, videos)
About different media sources (images, video, audio)
Pearl growing (moving from resource to resource based on new material gleamed from the different resources)

Reference

Haston, W. (2007). Teacher Modeling as an Effective Teaching Strategy: Modeling Is a Technique that Can Help Your Students Learn Effectively in Many Situations. Music Educators Journal, 93(4): 26.

6 Ways the Mario Bros Teach Collaboration

Jen — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 03:44:15 +0000

One of our favorite Christmas presents this year was Super Mario Brothers for the Wii. This is the first game of its kind that lets gamers play in the same world, at the same time (if you have 2 remotes). In multiplayer mode, both of my kids can run through Mario land as a team.

Even though many fights have erupted between the brothers for not collaborating properly, multiplayer mode has the potential to teach team-building and collaboration:

Cooperation
To get the most coins, the players must work together. This means that they must cooperate and make plans outside of Marioland. For example, one player can say to the other, “you get the coins on the top, I’ll get the coins on the bottom”. Time is saved and both players get the benefits.
Courtesy
If one player runs ahead too far, the other player will die. As a courtesy, the faster player usually waits for the other player to catch up before high tailing it to the next adventure.
Teaching
In our case, one of our players is more advanced (the 6 year old) than the other (the 4 year old). In order for their partnership to work, the more experienced player must instruct the other player on what to do, how to do it and why.
Helping
One thing my two lil’ players have discovered is that they can help each other. When time is running out, the better player lets the less experienced player hop on his back and carries him along to finish the board.
Team Work
The brothers are a team. Like it or not, what one does affects the other. The players learn that they are dependent on each other and that they will win or lose together.
Decision-making
In Marioland, everything happens quickly so there isn’t much time for making decisions, but in multiplayer mode, this gives kids a chance to make decisions together.

Here is a list of more cooperative games for the Wii.

Reference

LibraryGamer. (2010). Teaching Empathy. Retrieved from the Library Gamer blog at http://librarygamer.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/teaching-empathy/.

Circle of Moms

Jen — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:34:13 +0000

I’m a little late in the game, but finally had my first experience with the parenting social network Circle of Moms on Facebook and becoming a fan of another child’s page on Child Space. This app/website has been out for over a year and has almost 8 million members!

From my experience using this app/webiste, I think the attraction is in the sense of security (you create your child’s network, rather than posting to all your Facebook friends) the site offers moms who want to post about their kids. This app only lets other moms join the circle (‘moms’ as in Facebook users who’s profiles declare them female).

The interesting thing is that while this network is for mom’s only, it was created by 2 single guys, Mike Greenfield and Ephraim Luft.

References

With 850K Users in 2 Months, Circle of Moms Comes out of Nowhere
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/04/with-850k-users-in-2-months-circle-of-moms-comes-out-of-nowhere/

Circle of Moms: Connect and Shop with Social Media Moms Just Like You
http://mashable.com/2008/12/04/circle-of-moms/

Tech Gifts That Won’t Turn Your Kids Into TV-Heads

Jen — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:58:12 +0000

Our kids won’t be getting a Nintendo DS until they are at least pre-teens, nor will they have a TV in their room. But as lovers of technology, I do believe there are a few tech gifts that could have positive impacts on our kids, rather than turning them into tv-heads.

Tech gifts (under $35) that won’t turn your (under 8) kids into TV-Heads:

Try refurbishing an old laptop that has the bare basics on it–word processing, image editing, calculator, etc. They will surprisingly find great uses for it. We gave our kids our old PC laptops and they love typing and looking around.
An MP3 player will let your kids store family photos, videos and favorite songs. I have found that my kids don’t abuse the MP3 player but really enjoy it on car trips or in doctor’s offices. We look at pictures, they listen to their favorite songs (often sharing the earbuds) and can pick up radio stations. We have a Sansa Fuze which we got for about $30.
A bike computer (otherwise known as a speedometer or odometer) is great fun for the school-age kid. We ride our bikes almost everyday to school–the bike computer lets them learn about speed and distance.
There are a lot of kids digital cameras on the market, but we have found purchasing a used one from eBay to be just as fun. Kids have a great time photographing their life and these pictures will give you fodder when doing digital imaging projects with them!
We spend at least a half hour reading to our kids everyday, but sometimes they like to spend alone time reading too. Since our kids are not of reading age yet, the VTech Reading Pen has been hours of fun for them. It lets explore the VTech books and have multi-sensory experience with the stories. Since the pen only works with the Vtech books, I don’t see the reading pen as a threat to their own interest in reading, just another way to explore books.

More Christmas Online Fun

Jen — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:53:55 +0000

I was hesitant to make this one a family activity because of the title implications, but Elf Yourself is too good to pass up! The kids and I had a hilarious time finding pictures, uploading them, then watching JibJab turn our faces into dancing elves. The final result says it all!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Countdown to Santa

Jen — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:30:46 +0000

This Christmas, we are looking forward to tracking Santas flight schedule at the Norad website using Google Earth. According to the website, if we go to Norads Santa Tracking page on Christmas Eve, we will be able to watch Santa get closer and closer to our house. For our young kids, this will be a great chance for them to see where we live on a global scale–I wonder how they will feel about their cousin in Maine getting Santa goodies first!

For more information on using Google Earth to introduce kids to geography, science, literature or culture, check out Back to School: Educational Uses with Google Earth.

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