Today I am writing to let you know that Michael and I have decided to wrap up the (parent.thesis) blog. Writing it for the past ten months has been a wonderful opportunity to explore the issues surrounding family and technology. Blogging for CNET also turned out to be an overwhelming task for us, given that we each already work full-time. So we have found that we cannot sustain a daily conversation in this arena, though we are confident that our experience as CNET bloggers will continue to inform other areas of our work.
I love the serendipity of blogging. You never know exactly which topic will resonate with other people. The (parent.thesis) reaction that surprised me the most was the incredible interest in my post A kids'-eye view of laptop design that I wrote about construction paper laptops created by kids at our local school. After appearing on CNET, The Morning News wrote a feature story about the laptops, the designs made it onto Boing Boing, and have gone around the world since then. Just this week I had a request to reprint one of the designs in the UK Metro newspaper.
The tech community is not always aligned with a parent's-eye view of the world, so I was happy to find that people everywhere were interested to see the features kids came up with when they designed laptops from scratch. Even the most jaded techies found delight in the dedicated "kitten" and "Harry Potter trivia" keys.
So, as we sign off, I leave you with a design by your future tech users, the Mini Laptop Club.
(Credit:
Mini Laptop Club)
Kidzui is a new web browser designed for kids ages 3 to 12 years old. Rather than operating from a filtering mindset, Kidzui is trying to build the internet for kids from the ground up. Content is reviewed by an editorial staff of teachers and parents, running 24/7 and adding new content each day.
The site launched yesterday and my 8-year-old beta tester had a great time exploring the Kidzui environment. The "stickiest" features of the site involved creating a "Zui" avatar, which collects points as kids browse and rate videos, photos and other content. There is also a social networking aspect to the site that I have also not had the chance to explore, since the site is brand new.
Kidzui is starting out by offering access to "over 500,000 websites, pictures and videos." That may not sound like a lot of territory compared to the entire internet, but as a parent it feels good to know that there is a browsable universe that is populated with content screened to be appropriate for kids. Without Kidzui, many young kids are allowed to visit a few sites but are not allowed to explore beyond them. Browsing on Kidzui feels a little bit like visiting a park contained by well-defined borders. If the park is run well, parents can relax a bit as they give their kids latitude to roam.
Web content on Kidzui is screened for basic appropriateness, but not necessarily educational quality. Kids rate the sites and the most popular rise to the top of the ranks. Among those are many very commercial sites, such as Nickelodeon, Polly Pocket, and Webkinz. I have not had a chance to thoroughly explore the parental customization options, but Kidzui says parents can customize the browser based on which topics and sites they deem appropriate for their families.
Kidzui itself operates on a paid subscription model, with a 30-day trial period leading into a $4.95 a month charter subscription, $9.99 a month regular subscription. This model makes sense to me, knowing that the site requires constant editorial updating, and Kidzui wants to keep the site itself ad-free.
If you have young kids who are ready for browsing--with training wheels--Kidzui is an interesting environment that can appeal to kids and parents alike.
The Kidzui browser
(Credit: Kidzui.com)
Back when I was a neuroscientist, I participated in all sorts of "Women in Science and Technology" events and outreach programs. I have been thinking a lot lately about another kind of "woman in tech," namely those who are able create new jobs for themselves thanks to online connectivity and business tools.
This comes about in many ways. As a writer, for example, blogging has clearly revolutionized grassroots journalism. But beyond that, digital technologies have transformed all parts of the publishing world, creating new opportunities for product development, printing, distribution, and publicity outreach.
Sarah Headrick and Sarah Rivera
(Credit: Custom Made for Kids)I got in touch with author/entrepreneurs Sarah Headrick and Sarah Rivera after coming across their site Custom Made for Kids, which has the quality design of a site you would expect from a large company, but operates from a Yahoo Store platform. I was taken by the concept and illustrations for their personalized children's storybook, The First Adventures of Incredible You, and decided to find out more about the partners behind this new venture, suspecting the the internet was the key ingredient powering every level of their startup company.
Headrick and Rivera confirm that this is the case:
... Read moreAdults are increasingly aware of the risks of identity theft, but how many of us think about protecting our children's identities? This is an issue that we should be thinking about from birth, when baby registries, online birth announcements, and even the "Stork News" sign in the front yard expose kids' personal information--name gender, date of birth, and home address--to the wider world.
Children who get their identities stolen may not know for years, until they grow up and go to apply for a job, student loan, or credit card themselves. You can imagine what a mess that would be. It is important to periodically monitor our kids' credit reports to make sure there is not any strange activity going on.
The South Carolina Now website has a good article on this topic, with links to many resources.
One of the experts in the article points out that parents often use their child's identity because of their own bad credit. Strangers pilfer identifying information through mail, trash, and poorly secured forms (say, at a school or doctor's office).
Some basic precautions start with the idea of paying attention, investigating unusual occurrences such as a young child receiving loan or credit card offers in the mail, and building in precautions like investing in a home office shredder.
Everybody should review their credit reports with the three major credit bureaus, which you can do free once year.
We need to watch what others are saying about us online, and what information we are giving out. Many websites, even legitimate ones, are not in compliance with COPPA, the law that requires verifiable parental consent to collect personal information from kids under age 13. I am researching this topic in greater depth for a separate post, but in the meantime, it makes sense for us require our kids to ask permission before registering for any web site. If you feel uncomfortable sharing the information, don't. The extent of data mining, and how that information is used, is not fully known yet.
Identity theft creates yet another issue for parents to add to their list of important tasks, but this is definitely a case where an ounce of prevention is well worth the effort.
From the "Webkinz Mom" blog
I've been writing (parent.thesis) for about six months now, and the New Year seems like a good time to reflect on the themes that have developed. I love technology, and at the same time, I am cautious when it comes to kids and tech. Here are the three issues that are really bugging me right now:
• Disconnect between product design and online safety
• Commercialization of kids online
• Information control, privacy, and data mining
... Read more
On Thursday BBC News gave us a child's view of the $100 laptop. The article reads like a techie version of Jim Carrey's breakout movie The Mask, with Rufus Cellan-Jones as the star. The laptop, which came by way of Nigeria, unleashes incredible intuition and abilities in young Cellan-Jones:
... Read moreThe CNN article about the Aqua Dots product recall says:
U.S. safety officials have recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots bead toys that contain a chemical that has caused some children to vomit and become comatose after swallowing them.
We immediately did our own product recall, removing the unsafe toy from our house last night after our daughter went to bed. But how did this product get into our house in the first place?
... Read moreI woke up Monday to the announcement that starting September 24, the XO laptop (famous as the little laptop that could) will be made available to buyers in so-called first-world countries, in quantities less than 100,000 units. In fact, for less than $400 you can give one and receive another--an excellent solution to an age-old moral dilemma.
... Read moreA group of kids from one of our local elementary schools has formed a "mini-laptop club." They don't use electronic machines. Instead, these first-, second- and third-graders draw their own laptops on construction paper and pretend to e-mail each other. They dedicate a surprising amount of time to this activity. I once had a chance to examine one of their "keyboards." I was fascinated to learn which Internet functions had sunk into the minds of these kids, who are just getting their first exposure to computers from watching their parents work, and from using kid-friendly sites. Follow the page jump to see one of their designs.
... Read moreThe upcoming reality show Kid Nation was designed to show what happens when 40 children, ages 8 to 15, are thrown together in a desert "ghost town" to manage their own community for 40 days. Parents and commentators across the country are appalled by the idea that the kids were left largely unsupervised, and that some were injured in mishaps including four children who drank bleach and one who was burned in the face with hot grease.
CBS maintains that their set was legal and adequately safe and supervised. While that investigation goes on, details are coming out about the contract that the parents signed on behalf of their children. It appears that after the 40 days of "reality" filming were over, the children were contractually bound to an unlimited breach of privacy. According to The New York Times, which obtained a copy of the 22-page agreement, when parents signed the contract, they sold the rights to their children's life stories "in perpetuity and throughout the universe" for a measly $5000 (with possible episode-winning bonuses of $20,000). Presumably the contract was vetted by lawyers, so it may be legal to sign away a child's rights in this way, but to me it is an unconscionable moral breach of a child's privacy to do so, regardless of the dollar amount being offered.
The Times added that rights purchased by CBS and the production company included "the right to portray the children either accurately or with fictionalization 'to achieve a humorous or satirical effect.'" The entire contract is posted on The Smoking Gun under the headline, No Human Rights in "Kid Nation."
What do the kids think about all this? We can't know because the agreement also included a confidentiality clause with a $5 million penalty for unauthorized breaches.
Why would any parent sign sell their child out in this way? The specter of celebrity hangs over the whole situation. For some parents and kids, the loss of privacy may seem like a small price to pay for a chance at a "role" on national television. For the rest of us, it is a normal life that is priceless.
I question the ultimate enforceability of signing up any child for a perpetual agreement like the one created by CBS. If we ever do hear the behind-the-scenes details of Kid Nation, the story may come out in a court room rather than Entertainment Tonight.
