Media! Tech! Parenting!

digital parenting, home computer security, online safety, online security, parents and technology

Computer Virus Tour

Posted on September 21, 2010September 21, 2010 by Marti Weston

The bad guys in our digital equipment world are mini-programs of all sorts — often called viruses — that invade, infect, and incapacitate our computers. The medical metaphor is apt because digital viruses replicate and multiply just like those that infect the human body.

Different types of intrusive programs exist, though sometimes all are generically referred to as viruses. Another term, malware (short for malicious software), is often the umbrella term for the entire category.

A Few Important Terms

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great sites for students, homework, parents and technology, web research

Museums: For Schoolwork, Fun, and Even Travel – Bookmark It!

Posted on September 21, 2010October 9, 2010 by Marti Weston

Summer is over, but your family can still travel virtually to out-of-town museums by visiting one of the web-based museum portals described below. Each leads to a wide range of museums close by and around the world. Some of the sites feature travel information as well as museums.

While it is easy to search for the larger, most well-known museums, these search sites can help people find hidden museum gems. Becoming familiar with these museum portals gives parents and students an additional bonus — museums are great resources for students to use when they work on school reports and projects. Below are four sites that provide hours of fun, not to mention unlimited information. Continue reading “Museums: For Schoolwork, Fun, and Even Travel – Bookmark It!” →

digital parenting, online security, parents and technology, privacy

Back-to-School Digital Reading #5: Your Child’s Privacy

Posted on September 20, 2010September 20, 2010 by Marti Weston

Privacy is important for adults and children. Now an investigation has found that children who use well-known web sites are opening the door for small information-collecting programs called trackers to be installed on their computers.

In a September 17, 2010 article, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on its investigation into tracking technologies that are widely used by popular websites visited by children and adolescents. The article, On the Web Children Face Intensive Tracking, explains how investigators examined 50 popular children’s Internet sites to find out how much tracking occurs. They found that these sites install large numbers of tracking programs on personal computers without the knowledge of children and their parents.

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cultural changes, parents and technology, social media, social networking, teens and technology

Experiment: Go Without Social Media for One Week

Posted on September 18, 2010September 18, 2010 by Marti Weston

Can your family go for a week without social networking activities? In my family we go nuts when our Earthlink DSL goes down, which happens for a few minutes at least once each evening, let along not getting to use some of the most valuable web-based tools for a week.

Harrisburg University, a small college in Pennsylvania asked students and faculty to go without YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and more for one week, not to punish the college community, but to examine why they use these resources and why people need them. The university community is asking questions such as “What part the social networking tools play life and business?” and “What would happen if social networking were not around?”

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digital parenting, great sites for students, homework, parents and technology

Quick and Easy Graphing Site – Bookmark It!

Posted on September 16, 2010October 9, 2010 by Marti Weston

Have you ever wished you would make a quick graph as you help a child with homework or explain a complex concept by depicting it with a graph?

The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) offers a “Create-a-Graph” site, and more than 20,000,000 users have made graphs since 2005. The site provides a quick getting-started tutorial to help get started, but the graph making is simple enough that a user can get started almost immediately. Graphs can be saved, printed, and e-mailed.

Be sure to check out the other math and statistics facts on the NCES kids’ site.

acceptable use, digital citizenship, digital parenting, online safety, online security, parent education, parents and technology

Visit Google Family Safety Center – Bookmark It!

Posted on September 15, 2010February 28, 2015 by Marti Weston

Comprehensive web-based resources on digital safety, cyber-bullying, media literacy, and general technology information can help parents learn more about the web and how their children use it. Most of these sites update their content daily with timely tips, strategies for parents and kids, blog postings, and other helpful links. Yet, with so many sites to choose from, parents may have difficulty keeping track of any single location, let alone navigating among the sites on a regular basis.

Now Google, as so often happens, has come up with a terrific solution — the Family Safety Center. The center is well laid out with clear explanations about safety tools and connections to many of the best digital and media safety sites — all partnering with Google.

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great sites for students, homework, parents and technology, web research

Evaluating Websites: Be Sure of the Quality

Posted on September 10, 2010February 26, 2015 by Marti Weston

When we were students we learned to write content-filled essays and reports. Our teachers taught us to introduce the important facts, facts we discovered using quality reference materials. With today’s websites a student follows the same rules, but reliability is a significant issue. While it is easy to find sites with information about a topic, identifying reliable and significant information is more of a challenge. The trick is to identify information that indicates whether or not a site is a reliable resource. Do not let your child use a site as a resource unless it is possible to determine its quality.

Many websites look both real and reliable, but they are bogus. A fun website to explore is at based at the Western Australia Province Department of Education. It features bogus websites designed to look accurate and authoritative. Except that they are not accurate or authoritative. Take a few minutes to explore. Better yet, explore them with your children.

Evaluate the Web Sites that You Use

Be sure you use sites with accurate and reliable information. If you have a research project or your child has a homework assignment plan to evaluate each website to ensure its quality. Also please read the following tips describing how to evaluate web-based information.