Christy's Family Computing Blog

Thanks to all of these fabulous bloggers for sharing their best back to school tips for this month's All About Parenting Blog Carnival.

Back to School Shopping

Back to school shopping seems to be one of the rites of passage that is stressful for kids and parents. These bloggers have some great tips on taking the angst out of clothes and back to school shopping

Terry Candee of Bonding Moms & Daughters To Navigate Our Crazy World ..........Oh Yeah AND Crafts!!! teaches us "How to help tweens dress trendy and NOT trashy"

Terri Mauro, the About.com Guide to Parenting Special Needs explains how to Approach Back to School Shopping Without Fear.

Judy Hedding, the About.com Guide to Phoenix, AZ, has links to some wonderful back-to-school offers.

Amy Hobbs Harris at My Daily Dollars loves back to school shopping. So, she might be onto something with her post, "Stress-Free Back-to-School Shopping, teenage angst included."

Lunchboxes, Brown Bags and Back Packs... Oh, My!

It seems that there is still some status involved over whether you buy or brown-bag your lunch. One more thing to worry about!

Katherine Lewis, About.com Guide to Working Moms has a suggestion for a swanky lunch box that appeals to kids and moms who are concerned about plastics.

Ah, the great school lunch debate: Does your teen pack or buy? Denise Witmer, About.com Guide to Parenting Teens,wants to know what happens in your family.

Amanda Rock, About.com Guide to Parenting Preschoolers, says, To Lunchbox or Not to Lunchbox; To Backpack is Human?

Tips for Staying Organized

Juggling teen after-school activities, sports and various other commitments can be a headache. But, if you're well-organized, you can relax and actually enjoy all of the action.

Denise Witmer, About.com Guide to Parenting Adolescents, counsels, Get in the Habit of Checking Planners Together.

Jennifer Wolf, About.com Guide to Single Parents, shares her Back-to-School Readiness Checklist.

Special Considerations

Going back to school can be stressful even under the best of situations. Unfortunately, many of us have extra stressors to deal with at this time of year. Learning disabilities, food allergies, even the politics of parenting multiples require that some parents do some additional planning and preparation.

Pamela Fierro, Guide to Twins and Multiples, shares her upcoming school-year challenge in Going Their Separate Ways; Back to School with Twins.

For kids with food allergies, the school building can be downright dangerous. Shannon Bullard from Zeer Blog has information about peanut-free schools and classrooms for families with and without food allergies.

Ann Logsdon, the About.com Guide to Learning Disabilities, knows that kids with learning disabilities have their own anxiety about heading back to school. She's got tips for making the transition go as smooth as possible.

Just for Fun

Back to school time doesn't need to be all stress and worry. These bloggers remind us how to have fun!

Alvaro Fernandez presents Brain Teasers: Spot the Difference posted at SharpBrains, saying, "Want some brain exercise for kids and adults alike?"

Joanne presents Make A Back To School Gift Basket posted at Homemade Gift Baskets, saying, "Just a cute way of giving your kids school supplies. I did it with mine, and their homeschooled. They loved it. :-)"

Liberty Mutual wants to know, so they launched The Responsibility Project, a website that pushes us to consider what it means to be responsible parents, managers, teachers, politicians and more.

The Responsibility Project website includes short films, a blog, a resource are and a section where you can make a statement about what you believe. Challenge your ideas on what makes a good neighbor, how much freedom to give your kids, and how brain enhancing drugs impact the equality in a classroom.

The site raises a number of interesting questions for parents, but is also a way to start conversations with your kids about their own level of responsibility.

If you've been online for awhile now, you'll remember when ASCII art was prominent. There were no flashy smiley faces, roses and other emoticons to be had. We had to make due with standard letters, numbers and punctuation, like this for a rose: @--'---. It was sort of like the charm the Star Wars series held before they added so much CGI that it became slick and glossy and... well... not quite the same.

Ok, so I'm a bit old-school, but there's no harm in looking back at and reminiscing! Here are some examples of text-based word art and how we've progressed over time. If nothing else, it's a fun way to kill time. Please preview these sites before browsing with kids!

Start with Joan Stark's ASCII Art Gallery (this link is to the Cartoon Characters section). This is a great example of pure ASCII art. In case you don't appreciate how challenging this is, these are created by typing out the characters, line-by-line in a basic text editor. Think it sounds easy? Open up Notepad or another plain text editor and try it out for yourself. In fact, I'd love to see your (family friendly) ASCII art!

Move on to the Text ASCII Art Generator. This site takes any text you enter and converts it into ASCII art. That's cool in itself, but what makes it extra fun is that you can decide what font you'd like to use. So, for example, you can see your name spelled out ASCII-style with dots and dashes and such, but you can decide if you'd like your name in "Big Money" (one of my favorites) or "Script" (for the fancier folks). Once you're done, you can cut and paste the result into your sig file, website or anywhere else you need to get your text message out.

End your tour with the very funky "Make ASCII" site. Ok, so this isn't true ASCII art. It takes a photo and renders it using strings of text. You can even specify custom text to use. But it's fun to see your face spelled out in your choice of text.

If you're super-proud of your ASCII creation, head on over to the forum and share with the rest of us.

Virtual Worlds Management has recently released an updated list of virtual worlds for kids. According to their research that are more than 150 virtual worlds geared towards kids 18 and under in operation or under development. The list isn't comprehensive, as there are several sites flying under the radar and most likely some sites under development that have not yet been announced. Even so, the numbers are a bit shocking, especially when you consider that it's up from just over 100 last April.

It seems that everyone wants to capitalize on the popularity of sites such as Webkinz and Club Penguin. The good news for us as parents, is that we have a plenty of choices and competition for our kids' time. Hopefully, that will result in advertising-free, high-quality spots for our kids with great parental controls.

Don't be afraid to shop around for the best websites for your kids. It will be worth it in the end. You can also use my lists of Virtual Worlds for Young Kids, Virtual Worlds for Tweens and Virtual Worlds for Teens as a starting point. I register with each site and try it out before adding it to my list, so I can help give you an idea of what you'll find.

Sesame Workshop has recognized the important role the Internet plays in the entertainment and education of today's preschoolers. Their response was the development of a 14 million dollar website which aims to provide a customizable Sesame Street experience online. The site, SesameStreet.org, contains a large library of muppet-laden video clips and interactive games.

My first visit to SesameStreet.org. was bogged down with apparent server problems, a crashed browser and an experience that felt more like a step back in time than a glimpse of the future. For the most part I felt like I was watching Sesame Street on my computer screen, which is silly since it is microscopic compared to the mammoth TV my husband recently added to our home. The PlaySafe feature holds some promise. It essentially takes over your screen and will not let kids navigate away or minimize the window. Unfortunately, that's the feature that crashed my browser (Internet Explorer as recommended by the site) and left me unable to use my backspace key. The site also features the ability to create a "homepage" for your child with favorite games and videos. The system was moving too slow for me to test it out.

I'm looking forward to giving SesameStreet.org a second glance in a few days to see if they've worked out a few of the kinks. The site is still in beta, so I'd expect some rough patches here and there as they start getting a lot of users online.

One of my readers sent me a note to let me know that the much lauded Club Penguin Parental Controls don't seem to be doing what they are intended to do. They have since fixed some of the problems, but apparently the Parental Controls timer is still prone to cutting out early and the Connection History isn't recording things properly. Complaints to Club Penguin were met with a generic, "We are working to get these fixed and hope to have them ready soon."

Forrest, the parent, gave me a great analogy (and permission to share it with you):

In some sense I feel like I am letting my kid go over to a friends house to play. If those adults make some clear assurances to me, like "I'll sunscreen the kids if we are outside" and my kid comes home with a sunburn, then I trust them LESS than if they had NOT made the promise.  And when I ask them about it, they are kind of nonchalant about it, with some vague explanation.

Should virtual spaces online get a different treatment from me? Sure, I could sunscreen my kid, or use a kitchen timer at club penguin.  But what I really feel like doing is putting them in the "do not trust for anything" list. Am I paranoid? 

I thought I'd reply to Forrest on here, so that you can read my thoughts and chime in with your own.

My first reaction is that if a kids' website claims to do something, especially in terms of Internet Safety, they need to follow through. We trust that our children will be reasonably safe on that website (within the bounds they set), and if they break one part of our trust, where will it end? If something changes so that they can't or won't support a safety feature, it is essential that parents are notified. I complained about Webkinz World adding outside advertising without notification a while back, and I see this as a similar issue. The Parent's Guide at Club Penguin claims that you can "set play hours" and "limit the daily total" of hours spent online. If this is not the case, the guide is misleading.

The flip of all of this is that we are ultimately responsible for the health and safety of our own children. If it is absolutely essential to you that your child has sunscreen on, I believe that it is your responsibility to apply it yourself. If you don't feel comfortable with a particular adult and their ability to watch your child (especially due to a breach of trust), you need to say no to future visits. And the same goes for a website. The timer on a website is a trivial example, since spending too much time on Club Penguin is not really a "dangerous" situation. But if the language filters go out of commission, or malicious code (i.e. a virus) is somehow allowed to spread, that's a more serious issue.

In the end, I think that there is a difference between trusting a person and trusting a website. Software breaks and causes all kinds of problems. The staff at Club Penguin are presumably working to fix the problems with the parental controls. Assuming that it is under repair, and it's not a deliberate case of negligence (as in the sunscreen example), it should certainly be noted on the website, but I don't know if it warrants "do not trust for anything" label. That said, the parent ultimately needs to make that decision. There are other virtual worlds for young kids and tweens that may or may not meet your needs. Regardless, I think it's an important reminder to monitor our kids' Internet usage (quantity and quality) no matter what website they frequent.

I'm including a poll, so you can share your advice with Forrest, but please share your comments as well.

As environmental concerns rise, there has been much controversy about dams and their impact on local flora and fauna. This month, in the spirit of environmental renewal, New Hampshire says good-bye to the Merrimack Village Dam. The dam, originally part of the industrial revolution, has altered the flow of the Souhegan River for more than 270 years.

If you're wondering what that has to do with Family Computing, I'll let you in on the good news. You can watch the removal of the dam, as well as the return of the natural river flow, via webcam. They have had some technical challenges since the project began in late July, but the images that are available are pretty cool.

Read More

• News Release About the Project
• Dam Cam
• Share Your Favorite Webcam on the Forum

The All About Parenting Blog Carnival is back on the Family Computing site. This month, we want to get your best blog entries about heading back to school. Do you have tips for sending the kids off in style? Favorite back to school gear? Ideas for helping homeschoolers transition from vacation to classroom? Let us know.

Here's what to do:

• Write a great blog post with the theme of "Back to School." The deadline for submission is August 25, 2008.
• Link to this post somewhere in your submission.
• Submit the title of your blog post, the permalink (if you have one), and your name and email address to familyinternet.guide@about.com.

Please read the full guidelines before submitting. You can also visit "What is a Blog Carnival?" to learn a bit more.

While you're at it, check out the latest Blog Carnival - Money Saving Tips.

It seems like every day there's a new virtual world opening up. I've already highlighted some Virtual Worlds for Young Kids and Virtual Worlds for Tweens. Now it's time for the teens to have their say! I've started listing some of the top Virtual Worlds for Teens, but there are plenty more out there. If you have any you'd like to see me add, please leave a comment and let me know. Don't just send a link... if possible, tell me why you like it.

Read More

• Virtual Worlds for Teens
• Virtual Worlds for Tweens
• Virtual Worlds for Young Kids

Today we lost Dr. Randy Pausch, the upbeat Carnegie Mellon professor who gave the infamous "last lecture" that inspired the world. Dr. Pausch delivered the lecture in September, 2007, just shortly after being told that he had a life expectancy of only a few months due to advanced pancreatic cancer. His lecture was recorded and posted to YouTube, where it became a worldwide phenomenon. He later published a book of the same name.

Although most people know Randy from his lecture, he was also well-respected in the field of computer science, most notably in virtual reality. He led the development of the Alice project, which is designed to simplify the way people learn computer programming. It's actually one of our recommended software packages for learning to program. Randy's impact in the realm of computer science education will be felt for a long time to come.

Randy leaves behind his wife, Jai, and his three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe, as well as many family and friends. He was 47. You can read more about Randy's life and legacy on the Carnegie Mellon website. There is also information on how to make a donation in his memory.

Read More

• Randy's Personal Site (Including his battle with pancreatic cancer)
• Tribute Page to Randy (including links to video of "The Last Lecture" and other talks)
• Press Release from Carnegie Mellon University
• The Alice Project