Test a new English Practice program for kids 7-12
Here’ s a link to try out a new online language practice program for kids, between 7 and 12 I’d say, who are learning English in school in France or in a French speaking country:
Rich Morning Show kids’ English language program
It’s an animated program, based on a talk show format, the ‘ Rich Morning Show ‘. The children are contestants who answer questions based on short animated video sequences they watch.
There’ s two free sessions for all, and five 21 session programs to win for the first five who sign up.
Filed under Education and Child Development, For international Children and Parents | Comment (0)Finally a site about the Internet and Children
As I was updating the internationalparents blog, I noticed among the Google generated ads that are automatically sent to the right of the site this link: http://www.internetevolution.com.
I thought, hum, what’s that about?
To my good surprise, its not another site about the latest innovations that are going to mean Web 2.0, and even Web 3.0 are old news. No, this IBM backed site seems, at first glance, to take a societal look at the Web, with parents’ voices being heard loud and clear.
The themes I struggle with as a parent and web fanatic appear there and are debated, at last!
These are:
- How do we prevent our children from accessing shocking content on the web?
Or put in a positive light: How do we create a safe internet for our children? - Another question that gets little press is finally addressed: how to manage the security of information on the web? Protect it from thiefs?
- On a related topic, how to protect our identity on the web, ie, prevent that from being ’stolen’ by someone posing as ourself on the wide open web?
The Web we have today is a young, fearless 20 year old creation with no social conscience. We need, as parents and as responsible citizens, to push for a Web that’s conscious of its responsibility towards society because its impact is immense on the young crowd in particular.
- > Here’s the link again: InternetEvolution.com
Filed under Education and Child Development, For international Children and Parents, The Web and children | Comment (0)Can Yahoo Answers help international parents manage their family lives
I just posted a question on educational products for kids in Yahoo Answers. Pretty neat, I must say! I’m jealous of course as the one behind the Frenchparents site, because my first goal in creating this platform was to enable parents ( like me) to easily find answers to questions they had on raising and caring for their children, from birth to adolescence. This is the member-only Recommendations area of the site.
I had a particular angle as well: the aim was to offer a place to help connect those parents with an interest in the French culture.
The reason I’m jealous is Yahoo Answers provides a super easy and accessible way to attain this goal. You log in, enter your question and can get an anwer very quickly! Yahoo has a points system that encourages good behaviour, ie, quality answers.
That brings me to one of the limitations I would see to such a seductive system of Q and A:
- Who will respond to my question? Will it be someone I’m close to in terms of background and personality, and even geographically? I mean if my neighbour answered my questions on raising kids, I probably wouldn’t want her advice, because we have so little in common. If someone in the UK answered, whereas i’m in San Francisco, it wouldn’t help me too much either…
The idea behind a closed community like Frenchparents was that:
- It would first of all provide a safe place to ask all sorts of questions, even personal ones
- It would bring together those who took the effort to sign up to the site by filling out a loooong form and to pay a huuuge membership fee ( $20 to $35 a year)!
- It would bring together parents in a given geographical area, with similar references and constraints- like the excessive amount of sunshine and fresh air one gest living San Francisco…
- The other cautionary note to Yahoo Answers is the following. This is another giant mega tera database of us being held by a giant, woldwide company. From the categories we ask our questions in, Yahoo can infer our areas of interest and know yet a little more about us than where we live and our name, which they knew already. It just feels weird to me to have all this personal information held by a large corporate entity thats more powerful than any country governement…
Now with Frenchparents, members know some of the personal information they may provide is stored by a teeny, tiny entity with no power whatsoever! 
The web sure isn’t boring these days…
Filed under For international Children and Parents | Comment (0)Fun yet Educational Kids’ Sites
Seems finding fun yet educational kids’ sites is not so easy, with the many click-click sites that abound, which merely invite the visitor to click madly to pursue some objective like crossing a shark-infected river, implying no real learning experience.
Some of these ‘dumb fun’ sites, like the Nickelodeon site in the US, have the added disadvantage of being filled with ads for food products like high sugar cereal. Not really where I’d like my child to spend her time.
Here are some sites where you can send your child knowing he or she will be playing - and learning too.
<ul>
<li>PBS Kids:</li>
</ul>
The US public television network well known worldwide for its Sesame Street series also has a nice offering of games online. These are accessible for free and require no sign up. There’s no risk of any encounters, and children find games involving the popular characters they know, from Caillou to Clifford to Dragon Tales.
Contrary to what is witnessed on a lot of TV networks’ sites, the site is not used as a way to advertise the TV series and make the children passive spectators, putting them yet again in front of another TV set.
Filed under For international Children and Parents | Comment (0)