How to make YouTube safer for your family
When my own kids ask if they can have some screen time, they know I’m keeping a close eye on what they are doing. Inevitably, the word “appropriate” will enter the conversation. And they know what question I’m going to ask next: What are you going to do with your screen time? Like most kids, […]
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3 things we miss when we don’t look up
A friend of mine recently had to have some pretty significant surgery. Fortunately he’s doing better now, but in preparation for the surgery, they hit one little hitch. They had trouble intubating him. In order to put a breathing tube in, medical staff have to bend the head back in an awkward angle. If the […]
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Parents’ guide to copyright and fair use
A couple of years ago, I was teaching a group of high school freshmen about copyright. In my library at the time, student art work filled many of the open spaces and shelves. I asked the art teacher to always label every piece with the student-artist’s name, as the kids certainly deserve the credit for […]
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Teaching your digital kids how to talk
With the increase of screens and devices in their children’s lives, one of the biggest concerns many parents have is the dying art of conversation. It seems that kids (and adults) have difficulty speaking to anyone without looking directly at a screen. This is concerning for a lot of reasons. Most of us grew up […]
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The Best Internet Filtering App: You
We’re all hoping that it exists somewhere. That one app or piece of software or program that will do everything when it comes to keeping our kids safe online, protecting them from cyberbullies and online predators, helping them make good choices when they’re surfing, and teaching them how to be good digital citizens. We want […]
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Filtering and monitoring: A primer for parents
If your kids are old enough to be online, you have to have some safeguards in place on your internet connection. But which ones? And how many? And where do you start? When you start looking at options, it can be overwhelming and a little confusing. What’s the difference between filtering and monitoring Let’s start […]
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8 digital world skills we must teach our children
In the opening years of the 21st Century, much of the conversation in education was trying to answer the question: What skills do our kids need for the rapidly-changing world they will inherit? Critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, information literacy, and other similar terms topped the lists. Now a decade and a half in, social media, […]
Read more...[Book Review] Parenting in a Digital World
As a school resource officer, Clayton Cranford has experienced the darker side of technology in the lives of children and teens. Having worked on issues of cyberbullying, online predators, and sex trafficking, the “Cyber Safety Cop” (as he’s known) has distilled much of that experience into an immensely practical book for parents. Parenting in a […]
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Ninja Google search skills every parent should know (to impress their kids)
There aren’t too many other tasks that shake our parental confidence quite like helping our kids with their homework. With me, I cringe every time they have to do “research”. Despite the fact that our children are likely being taught some good search skills in school, most likely they will just rely on a simple Google search […]
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Talking to your child’s school about technology
A friend recently asked me about Google passwords. Another student in her daughter’s 4th grade class, she explained, had figured out her daughter’s password and had been posting junk on some of her documents. My friend spoke to staff at the school, the password was changed, and the problem seems to have stopped. But there were […]
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