Spotty Blue Banana

Child Safety Settings

markuos — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:28:23 +0000

The latest episode of BBC Click (9 October 2010) note this might be accessible only within the UK had a piece about child online safety, specifically looking at safety settings and dedicated child web browsers. The article ran in the video from 8min 45sec to 12min 30sec.

Areas covered included:

Windows and Mac OS and browser settings
Downloadable browsers
- Zoodles
Chrome browser extention
- Kid Safe by LinkExtend
Kid-specific browsers
- KidRocket
- KidZui (previously featured)
- PikLuk

Of course there is the other argument that you should help your children to be careful, astute and discerning about their online activities without having to use these control mechanisms to keep them safe, which will be more beneficial to them in the longer term. However, this route might require greater initial supervision by parents of a child’s online activities.

I’d be interested to know your views, so please leave a comment.

Phonics videos my a UK year 1 teacher

markuos — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:25:04 +0000

There are over 200 free YouTube hosted videos from Mr Thorne, a year 1 primary school teacher in the UK, that can help parents with English, reading, spelling, and early literacy for their children. The videos should be engaging enough to hold the attention of four, five and six year olds.

1066 (and all that)

markuos — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:21:22 +0000

There is a great history site, called Hands on History, on the BBC covering Norman times. There’s a clickable map that shows up lists of interesting activities across Britain relating to Normans. But of particular interest is the downloads page, which has a host of pdf with things to do with children, including building a Motte and Bailey castle, information sheets with what to look for in Norman churches and castles, and a 1066 Battle of Hastings game for 7-11 year olds to play.

There’s also a free Normans pull-out timeline to send off for.

Perhaps for the older children there is an online strategy battle game of 1066 from Channel 4.

Myths and legends of Britain

markuos — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:43:24 +0000

This is an interesting storytelling site full of old legends and myths from around the British Isles.

On top of this you can create your own stories using the online creator. It’s pretty intuitive to use.

You can view stories created by others via the creator.

Smories – Children’s stories read by children

markuos — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 19:11:22 +0000

What is Smories? Well put simply it’s a brilliant idea. Lots of young children love having stories read to them. They also like having stories read to them by other children; you might have seen siblings reading to one another, or making up stories for each other. Well that is the basis for Smories – video recordings of children reading stories.

If you’ve got a story for children you can submit it and if its good then one of the many narrators is filmed reading it. Simple as that.

If you’ve got kids then point them towards the site and let them go.

The idea for the site came from a couple with children on a long, long car journey. That’s why the site is also accessible from iPhones and the iPod Touch, so you can get a story where ever and whenever you (or more significantly your kids) want to. It would be nice to see if integration and access is as easy from other portable devices, I haven’t checked that yet.

But with a constant stream of new material, they’re aiming for 50 new stories a month, Smories is a place to keep returning to again and again.

Smories is a UK site a month in so currently all narrators are british with UK accents. The intention is to have more US narrators from August.

Cute Cartoon Creation Script

markuos — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:30:13 +0000

This is a bit of fun for the kids, two cartoon characters talking the script you input. It’s called Cute Cartoon Creation.

Choose your language, select a couple of characters, a locations backdrop and then write what you want your characters to say. Then away they go. It’s fun.

Memory Squid Game

markuos — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:20:11 +0000

If you want to exercise your memory then this Memory Squid Game will give it a bit of a workout.

You’re given a sequence of words and have to click on them in the televisions. Get one wrong and a bunny gets zapped. Get all of the words to move on to the next level.

Kahn Academy

markuos — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:54:25 +0000

I have to take my hat off to Sal Kahn for a truly immense resource. What he has achieved with the Kahn Academy is nothing short of incredible.

He’s single handedly generated 1000+ instructional videos covering subjects including:

What a wealth of information. This has to be place in the category alongside Academic Earth and Udemy.

Flags

markuos — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:43:08 +0000

With this game, Flags, you have to identify the country represented by the displayed flag from a list of five countries.

Electric Box – logic game

markuos — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:51:22 +0000

The little grey cells certainly have to work to figure out the logic needed to solve the problems that this rather interesting little game, Electric Box, throws up at you. It demonstrates to children the need with some problems to resolve one solution before working on the next element of the string of problems to develop the entire solution. Fun graphics make the appearance of the game engaging and appealing.

When all the levels have been completed, there is a further dimension to the game, you can turn your talents to creating levels yourself for others to solve. This engages a different thought process, which is good.

There are a couple of other ‘level packs’ of user-generated levels to try your hand at as well.