Your children's digital footprint

Tips for educating our children about their digital footprint:

1. Don’t lie. Don’t EVER lie to kids. They are a lot brighter than we are, and they will distrust you when they catch you out. “Why can’t I have a Facebook account?”. “Because that’s the rule, you have to be 13″. Not: “The computer won’t allow it”. They’re literal beings. When they discover John down the street has a FB account, you’re busted. HIS computer will allow it…therefore, Mum/Dad lied.

2. Start early. Talk to your children about drugs and alcohol despite the fact they’re a long way off having any interactions with addictive substances. Also talk to them about Social Media despite the fact they are a long way off opening accounts. The earlier we get the conversation started the better.

3. Monitor accounts and monitor your children’s online activities. Yes, they can be on Facebook, Twitter, whatever when they’re old enough: as long as you can see what they’re doing. There’s no difference in the fact that you monitor their tv/movie viewing or where they go out while they’re still young.

As a parent, it’s your duty to guide them and you can’t do that if you don’t know what they’re doing. You are not their friend, you are their parent. Maintain that difference!

4. Clearly to guide your children, you need to understand social media yourself. You will have several friends who HATE facebook and twitter. They curse everyone who dares to share their information and they think the world is going down the toilet due to SM.

In turn, they tell their children that they’re not allowed on there. Ever, ever, ever and “Not in my house”.

This is simply burying your head in the sand and avoiding the issue. It will cause more harm than good. I am sure you did some things as a teen that make you cringe now, and we did some of these things because they were expressly forbidden.

Understanding the ways in which our children communicate with each other will help us much more than simply saying NO and turning your back.

5. Clearly to guide your children, you must understand your online persona and what it represents. We all have several personal and business related social media accounts. However, we NEVER write things on our personal FB account without the realisation that our clients, friends and relatives could easily see it too.

Of course your accounts have security, but it just takes one person to share your status/tweet and the whole world can see it. Bang goes your security!

Your online persona is made up of ALL the things you put on the internet and some people will gather this together to determine who or what you are. We need to explain this to our children too – what they write today will be there for their future boss/partner/friends to see.

These are some basic tips in understanding our digital footprint and helping our children understand theirs too.

46 million dollars in funding for digital textbook reader

Kno Inc., a company developing a digital textbook reader for students, said Wednesday that it has received 46 million dollars in the latest round of funding from venture capitalists.

Kno said Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm launched by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, was the lead investor along with Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital.

Founded in May 2009 and short for "knowledge," Kno is developing a two-panel, touchscreen tablet computer that will allow users to read digital textbooks, take notes, access the Web and run educational applications.

"Kno is gearing up to launch the first digital device that we believe will fundamentally improve the way students learn," said Osman Rashid, Kno's chief executive and co-founder.

Rashid said the funding will "help us continue to deliver on our product roadmap and ultimately deliver on our vision to bring innovative digital technology to the world of education."

Andreessen, a member of Kno's board of directors, said "Kno is poised to lead the market with its digital textbook and learning platform and we are excited to be part of the revolution.

"We are strong believers in the disruption of untapped markets and education is a prime example of a sector in need of digital innovation," he said.

Kno chief technology officer and co-founder Babur Habib said the company hopes to "get the Kno into the hands of students for beta testing this fall and ultimately for the first customer ship later this year."

Apple launched its iPad tablet computer earlier this year and a number of other companies have announced plans recently to come out with touchscreen devices for reading electronic books or surfing the Web.

Back to School Guide 2010: Best digital cameras for kids | ZDNet

Sakar International actually makes several digital cameras that are geared toward pre-schoolers — including a Dora the Explorer camera and a SpongeBob Squarepants camera that actually comes with a waterproof housing. But I prefer Sakar’s LeapFrog Click n’ Create Digital Camera because it offers higher resolution (2.1megapixels) and better image quality as well as a 1.5-inch preview LCD.

While preschoolers might gravitate toward the Dora and SpongeBob characters, the lack of an LCD on those cameras is a dealbreaker for me. The size of the LeapFrog camera is great for little hands, as are the rubberized grips that make the camera feel fairly sturdy, though it’s nowhere near as solidly built (or versatile) as the Vtech Kidizoom Plus, which sells for the same $50.

Though the Vtech camera (which I recommend for slightly older kids) is a much better value for the money, if you’re buying for a 2 or 3 year old, the LeapFrog camera will be easier to handle — both because it’s much simpler to use, and because of its more compact size. Tots will love that the camera says “great shot!” when you snap a photo and “bye-bye” when you turn it off, but parents will be grateful there’s an option to turn off the sound since there’s no volume control.

The camera comes with 8MB of built-in memory, so it can store roughly 100 photos depending on the resolution you choose. But because it’s SD RAM, you must download the images before you remove the batteries or you’ll lose all your shots. Bundled software includes LeapFrog brand games and basic photo editing software for use on a PC or Mac.

Objective Software Review: Using a digital recorder with Dragon Naturally Speaking

Reviews: Using a digital recorder with Dragon Naturally Speaking Software

The not insignificant cost of purchasing the necessary software and hardware had delayed my “experiment” and although I had read and felt assured that speech recognition technology had improved vastly over the past few years since my earlier attempts, it did not always suit all users. I am also aware that my expressive writing style seems to “flow” from my typing rather than my speech.

I was assured that my computer was able to cope with the specifications demanded by Dragon Naturally Speaking and this was the first item to be installed, configured and used.

It was relatively easy to do, but I would recommend building into your financial plan a separate allowance for training. That way you can set up the software to your specific needs, learn to use the commands quickly and other useful tips and practices.

The alternative is to undertake a lenghty period of trial and error, without training. I do not recommend repeating the initial hit and miss practices of my early attempts.



Purchasing a good quality headphone set, is also strongly recommended.

NB: The Dyslexia Untied blogsite does not endorse products but provide this blog for information only. I hope it has been beneficial. Please leave me a comment.