"This Is Part of Raising Children Now": TV Report on Monitoring Kids' Online Lives

There's no excuse for not staying on top of your children's online activity, experts said in a recent TV news report from WRAL in Raleigh, Durham and Fayetteville, North Carolina.

WRAL reporter Amanda Lamb talked to social media experts who agreed that parents must educate themselves about the media platforms their kids are using, and educate their kids — from the very beginning — about the various pitfalls involved. (See the TV report here.)



Lamb spoke with some kid experts, too. Twelve-year-old Kalyse Connor said social media is a "huge" part of her middle school life. Even her 7-year-old sister, Kaiya, is online, using sites like National Geographic's Animal Jam and doing Facetime with her mom.

But Kalyse and Kaiya's parents closely monitor all of their online activity. "Our girls cannot go on any social network without our permission," said Angela Connor, who manages social media for a communications company. “I think we have to be involved as parents," she said. "It's not OK to say, 'Oh, I don't know. We didn't do that when I was a kid.'"

A top concern of many parents is kids posting things that will get other people, or themselves, in trouble — now or down the road.

"We don't know what college applications are going to be like in six years," said the girls' father, Derek Connor. "Are they going to Google you? Are they going to go back and look at your Facebook page and see the things you've posted?"

"It's really important for parents to understand that they have to do this," Angela Connor added. "This is part of raising children now."

Watch the full report above, or read the story — which includes an Internet safety checklist for parents from North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper — here.

Edutopia: More Great Resources on Raising Kids in a Digital World

For anyone looking for guidance navigating the digital world of today's kids, the site Edutopia has a great resource page that's a must to bookmark.

"Media and Digital Literacy: Resources for Parents" is an excellent collection of articles, videos, tip sheets and other resources compiled by the editors of Common Sense Media. These carefully curated links contain a wealth of useful information. Learn how much privacy a kid gives up in one hour online. Find out what to do when Facebook photos go wrong. Learn how to create a healthy media diet for your kids.

The topics on this site run the gamut, from keeping kids safe online to the ins and outs of social networking sites. Need help dealing with digital harrassment? Check out "When Texting Turns to Torment." Want to learn more about digital security? Read about the dangers of phishing and spyware here. If you're not too clear on how kids can use digital media ethically for schoolwork, there's a section of resources on hi-tech cheating, digital piracy and copyright law. There are even links on the influence of media role models and why these role models matter.

Edutopia, a site published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, has as its mission improving K-12 education. The well-organized site catalogs innovative practices in education. Thankfully for interested parents and caregivers, it catalogs articles like the above as well. It's an easy-to-navigate site and well worth a look.

Sesame Street Did It: 1 Billion YouTube Views, and the Count's Counting Every One

Count von Count is beyond excited today. He got to count to 1 billion — and in just under 3 minutes — to celebrate Sesame Street's YouTube channel reaching 1 billion views on YouTube, the first nonprofit ever to do so.

"There's no time to sleep and there's no time to snooze, cuz I'm counting the 'you's in YouTube!" the energized Count sings, polka-style, in this "top secret video" released this morning after Sesame Street hit its big mark:

Sesame Street is the first U.S. children's media outlet to reach this impressive digital milestone. (See the February 18 post on this topic on "The Digital Child"). The achievement reflects the rapid growth of educational content on digital platforms such as YouTube.

Sesame Street has long been the market leader in creating multimedia children's content. And it won't stop at 1 billion views.

"I want to keep counting, yes that's what I choose," the Count sings, "so I'll make you an offer that you can't refuse: you keep on viewing and I'll count the views." A counter on Sesame Street's YouTube channel this morning shows 1,000,555,802 video views already. The Count had better be ready — there will be lots more counting to do.

Twitter's for Two-Year-Olds, Too: "The Honest Toddler" Tells It Like It Is

It's the perfect meeting of digital technology and young children today: A toddler who tweets! And blogs. And posts Facebook status updates. And has grown-up followers by the ten-gazillions.

OK, so the toddler in this scenario isn't actually a toddler. But let's leave that aside for a moment... I'm talking about The Honest Toddler, a virtual child who's earned a tremendous following — and even a book deal — in just a matter of months.

The Honest Toddler is like a 2013 cross between Charlie Brown (lovable, thoughtful, put-upon) and Stewie from "The Family Guy" (hyper-intelligent, resentful of adults, plotting to take over the world or at least rid it of broccoli).

Sorry about last night. Guess we both learned something though. You learned to come the first time I call and I learned to never give up.
— Honest Toddler (@HonestToddler) February 26, 2013

An advocate for fellow toddlers everywhere, the Honest Toddler does not mince words. She tells toddler life like it is. In the blog post "The Nap Window," the Honest Toddler writes, "These people brought you into the world and all they can think about is the next time you'll be unconscious." In "Not Sorry," she states, "I’m not sorry that I exploded a feather pillow with scissors. Pillows are family property and I’m part of this family."

Grandmas always see you for you, not for the things you break or catch on fire.
— Honest Toddler (@HonestToddler) February 7, 2013

The Honest Toddler has no shortage of advice for grown-ups. From the post "Feeding": "If toddler hits [a] spoon out of your hand, laugh and move on to dessert." From "Judgment Day": "Spend less than 15 minutes a day on Pinterest. Use 14 of those minutes searching for new cake recipes. Bake that cake." ("Judgment Day" is a small gem about how a group called Anonymous Toddlers shuts down Pinterest and Instagram, tired of sitting "naked in potato sacks and on wooden benches while your parents Instagramed ridiculous photos of you adjacent to wheelbarrows.")

There's advice for other toddlers too. From "How to Get Kicked Out of Preschool," for those desperate to escape their "holding cell for toddlers": "During naptime, wait until the room is silent. Jump up suddenly and yell, “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” in a celebration voice. Mom and dad will be there shortly." And check out the "Honest Toddler of the Day" series, where poor toddlers like "Honest Toddler of the Day: Isobel" are honored for persevering despite having no bike, boring toys, a troublesome older sibling and being fed spinach pea risotto.

Walked into my parent's room at 3AM. They looked at me like I was the angel of death. Just wanted a quesadilla.
— Honest Toddler (@HonestToddler) February 7, 2013

Fell down and was just denied a Band Aid because "there's no blood." EMOTIONAL SCARS DON'T BLEED
— Honest Toddler (@HonestToddler) January 30, 2013

The Honest Toddler's nearly 195,000 Twitter followers and more than 90,000 Facebook fans have always known something deep down: that a toddler wasn't really writing these brilliant missives on being small. So who was?

The answer was revealed February 26 in posts announcing the Honest Toddler's new book, The Honest Toddler: A Child's Guide to Parenting. On the bottom of the cover, in fine print, are the words, "Written under the supervision of Bunmi Laditan."

So the secret's now out. A mother of two and longtime writer/social media consultant who lives in Quebec is the real voice behind this clever, media-saavy tot. Furthermore, the Honest Toddler is definitely based on a girl, Laditan's youngest daughter, now 3 years old. (There had been much speculation over the Honest Toddler's gender.)

"I deliberately decided to stay anonymous because it wasn't about me; it was more about the voice and the entertainment," Laditan told the Huffington Post yesterday. "The only reason people know that I'm behind it now is because my name needed to be on the book cover." 

Laditan took a moment away from tweeting, blogging and parenting for the Huffington Post's fun Q&A. But she noted, "In the time I've answered these questions, my youngest has managed to dip her hand in a jar of maple syrup. Fully submerge it." 

This is exactly this kind of thing that inspired Laditan last May to see the humor in her life of caring for her then 2-year-old while working from home — a situation she called "absolute madness" — and start tweeting about it.

The Honest Toddler's huge popularity tells us at least one thing: People will read a toddler's tweets. And blog posts. And Facebook updates. That's right, maybe Twitter really could be for toddlers... if only we'd teach them how to use it.

(You can pre-order Laditan's new book on Amazon here. It's due out May 7, just in time for Mother's Day.)

A "School in the Cloud": Kids, Computers and Learning on One's Own

A child who's never seen a computer before suddenly has one at her fingertips. She has no knowledge of the Internet and knows very little English. There are no adults around to teach her. What happens?

The answer, says Indian educator Sugata Mitra, is some extremely impressive learning. For the past 14 years, Mitra has been conducting experiments with kids and computers, showing how quickly they can become computer literate without any intervention from adults. 

Mitra, who was awarded the $1 million 2013 TED Prize this week, argues that the future of learning demands a new system in which adults merely spark children's curiosity then let them teach themselves. With a little help from computers, that is.

Mitra calls this approach "self-organized" learning. "It's not about making learning happen, it's about letting it happen," he said in a speech at the TED2013 conference in Long Beach, California, on Tuesday, where he was awarded the organization's first-ever $1 million prize. (See Mitra's full speech here.)



Mitra's experiments began in 1999, when he dug a hole in a wall between the New Delhi research center where he was teaching computer programming and the slum on the other side. He placed an Internet-connected PC in the hole, facing the slum, and left it there.

Within hours, the kids from the slum had learned how to use the computer and surf the Internet — and were teaching each other how to do it — all on their own. They also taught themselves English over time so they could do it even better.

Mitra replicated this "hole in the wall" experiment in many more locations in rural India. Hole in the wall learning stations have since spread to Cambodia and to several African countries. (The New Delhi hole in the wall project was an inspiration for the novel Q&A, which later became the Oscar-winning hit Slumdog Millionaire.)

"In nine months, a group of children left alone with a computer in any language will reach the same standard as an office secretary in the West," said Mitra, who is a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University in England.

While he does not favor direct teaching or intervention from adults, Mitra said he discovered that encouragement and admiring words from an adult — such as a grandmother would give — did help the kids in his experiments to learn better. This led to a new experiment called the "granny cloud": a community of English grandmothers who volunteer time to Skype with children across oceans and simply tell them that they're doing great.

"The granny cloud sits on the Internet," Mitra told the TED2013 audience. "If there's a child in trouble, we beam a 'gran.' She goes on over Skype, and she sorts things out."

Sugata Mitra's "SOLE Toolkit"

Mitra has developed a new model of education based on his experiments called SOLE, or self-organized learning environments. In this model, adults merely ask children big questions — "What is a soul?" "Can animals think?" — and let them learn on their own using computers and working in groups. Mashable's Chris Taylor explains SOLE this way in the article "How This Teacher Won the $1 Million TED Prize": "Give kids a computer, ask them a serious adult-level question, encourage their efforts to answer it, and stand well back."

Mitra plans to use the TED Prize money to build a "school in the cloud" — a learning laboratory where he can test out his SOLE principles and continue various experiments in self-directed learning. The school would be a physical building, likely in India, that's managed completely by cloud technology. It would be practically unmanned, Mitra said, with only one "granny" present to oversee health and safety issues. Everything else would be done via the cloud — even switching on the lights and AC, Mitra explains in this one-on-one interview with The New York Times.

Mitra has compared the school to a "safe cyber café for children," where they can connect with information and mentors online and work collaboratively with other kids. Mitra would like to see how such self-organized learning centers can be scaled globally. For now, though, the school — along with the $1 million prize that will fund it — is a testament to the wondrous innate capabilities of children. And to the tremendous appeal of a computer, even one that's just stuck in a hole in the wall.

(TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, is a global nonprofit organization devoted to "ideas worth spreading." The TED2013 conference ran this week from Monday through today. You can download the "SOLE Toolkit" from Mitra on the TED website to learn how to apply the SOLE model in your own community.)

Little Fingers, Big Purchases: Guarding Against "In-App" Spending

Watch out for those flashy icons and banner ads promising extra content in game apps for kids. When little eyes see them, Mom or Dad's credit card bill could go through the roof.

A slew of recent news reports have shown just how easy it is for young kids to make expensive "in-app purchases," or IAPs, while playing games on mobile devices, and just how much their parents are paying for it.

In a recent piece in The Guardian on kids using iPhones and iPads, reporter Mark King tells the story of a 6-year-old boy who spent 160 pounds (roughly 240 U.S. dollars) on "Smurf Village credits" for the Smurfs' Village game in a matter of 15 minutes.

The child was able to do this because under current rules on Apple's iTunes, after a user first enters a password to make a purchase, there's a 15-minute window to make additional purchases without being prompted to re-enter the password.

Chris Brown, the boy's father, tells The Guardian his tale of app (and Apple) woe: "I contacted Apple and discovered I wasn't the only naive parent in the world. This is a common occurrence and Apple refused to issue any kind of refund. Needless to say that I have now disabled all in-app purchases on my devices. Lesson learned."

Such stories of parents surprised by monster bills for online gaming are on the rise everywhere (see this piece from Ireland, where one grandfather was left holding a pretty big bag).

"App developers are not often altruistic," Spencer Whitman of the firm AppCertain told The Guardian's King. "They often include in-app purchases hidden behind the free price tag. Either they offer a small amount of play, then charge for continued use; offer in-app purchases for more in-game content such as extra areas of play or upgrades; or they constantly interrupt game play to ask for in-app purchases."

Indeed, the "freemium" mobile app business model — in which the app itself is free but users are charged for additional content or functions — is highly effective. It's quickly becoming the standard for developers as revenue growth for freemium apps explodes.

In-app purchases will in fact drive 41% of app store revenues by 2016, up from just 10% in 2012, according to forecasts by Gartner Analysts, King reports. A Juniper Research forecast out this week said tablet users alone will generate $3.03 billion each year via IAPs by 2016 — a tenfold increase from the $301 million generated in 2012. Smartphone users will spend $6 billion on IAPs in 2016, Juniper forecasts.

King and others offer tips on protecting against costly IAPs.These include: Put a mobile device in "airplane" mode or turn off the Internet when your little one is using it. Link your app store account to a gift card instead of a credit card to limit the amount that can be spent. Require the account password to make any purchase.

And watch out for that in-app advertising. In another Guardian piece, out last week, King reports on an ad in a new app for a popular kids series that enticed kids to sign up for a subscription service for additional content — for a mere 208 pounds a year (about 315 U.S. dollars). The ad, on the Talking Friends Cartoons app for iPhones, iPad and Android devices, was pulled shortly after the app launched this month. (For more on this controversy, see this post on Apps Playground.)

Another new app, Dino Land from National Geographic, also stirred up controversy this month over an in-app extra in which kids can buy virtual "bones" for as much as 69.99 pounds (and apparently the same amount in dollars), King reports. (See Apps Playground again for more in-depth discussion.)

In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission is looking closely at mobile apps designed for children. They put out not one but two reports last year on privacy concerns surrounding children's apps (see the earlier post on this blog "2012 Was an Interesting Year"). The warning is clear to developers: They should pay close attention to advertising rules and policies — and to a basic sense of what's right and wrong — when it comes to apps for kids. If they don't, they could be facing a major "app-lash" one day soon.

Preschoolers on "Media Diet" Show Improved Behavior: Study

It's no secret that preschoolers really like TV. And with more ways than ever now to access TV content — Elmo's just a tap away on Dad's new tablet — it's becoming more a part of preschoolers' daily lives all the time. In fact, it's estimated that preschool-aged children in the U.S. watch almost four and a half hours of TV each day at home and in daycare settings.

There are any number of studies out there about the negative effects of too much TV. (Not to mention this chilling report from New Zealand this week linking early TV watching to later criminal convictions.) But pediatrician Wendy Sue Swanson says the right kind of TV can improve children's lives. In the February 18 Huffington Post article "Preschoolers Can Learn Great Things From TV," Swanson discusses new research out this week that showed that a group of preschoolers who were put on a "media diet" — their parents paid special attention to the kinds of shows they were allowed to watch — exhibited better behavior after just six months.

The study, by Dimitri Christakis, pediatric researcher at Seattle Children's Hospital, was published online in the journal Pediatrics on February 18. It did not focus on how much TV the children watched; it was strictly about what they watched. With the encouragement and help of case managers, a group of children ages 3 to 5 in a "media diet" intervention program watched more "prosocial" content and less violent and inappropriate content than children in a control group.

"Prosocial programming," Swanson writes, "is that kind of TV show that promotes children acting in kind ways or shows children sharing. In prosocial shows, adults are portrayed as dependable and helpful."

The media diet worked: Scores for social competence and behavior improved significantly for the kids in the intervention group. They showed less aggressive and more prosocial behavior than those in the control group. At both the 6-month mark and the 12-month mark, they demonstrated more helpfulness, concern for others and empathy.

"It's a variation on the 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' idea," writes pediatrician Claire McCarthy in the Pediatrics article "Pediatricians and Television: It's Time to Rethink Our Messaging and Our Efforts" published online February 18. "If the screens are going to be on, let's concentrate on the content, and how we make it work for children."

Swanson offers tips for creating your own media diet with children at the end of her piece. For more advice about good TV programming for young children, check out "Must-See TV for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners" on Education.com. For even more on TV and young children, see this article on preschoolers and this one on kids under age 3 on PBS Parents. For info on TV viewing and children of all ages, see this fact sheet from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP).