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No one can keep up the explosion of apps for kids but the Tech with Kids site sure can help. Each app is identified by topic, app, video game or website, grade level and platform it is available for, and receives a one to four star rating. Sign up for the weekly newsletter, check out the new reviews, and look at features like Preschool Apps to Help Kids Build Routines. It is very useful!

Playing Non-Educational Tablet Games May Hurt Toddlers Speech Development

Young children who play non-educational games on tablets may present lower scores in speech development benchmarks, according to a recent study. The study from Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York found that playing games, such as "Angry Birds" or "Fruit Ninja," resulted in lower scores in speech tests for both understanding of language and speaking. "Technology can never replace a parent's interaction with his or her child," said Ruth Milanaik, chief investigator of the study. "Just talking to your child is the best way to encourage learning." But, the team also found that there was no difference in scores on general developmental tests in children aged up to three between those who played educational or non-educational games on touchscreen devices.

A Digital Book That Can Help with Whining Over ScreenTime

Are your kids whining about their screen time limits? Perhaps, a new digital book called The Adventures of Ash & Ollie: ScreenTimemight be able to get the message across that it is important to balance screen time with other forms of play. Done in rhyming verse, the two brothers featured in the story explain their family’s rules, which can help, as kids are often more accepting of family guidelines if they know that other family’s have the same kind of restrictions. The story comes in app form, costs $2.99, and is available at the Apple App Store and on Google Play.

Are Teens Struggling to Communicate in Real Time?

Students' reliance on digital devices may be weakening their face-to-face communication skills, Louisville, Ky. teacher Paul Barnwell writes in an article in The Atlantic. After observing his high-school English class struggle to hold conversations, Barnwell realized "that conversational competence might be the single-most overlooked skill we fail to teach students." He suggests focusing on sharpening students’ ability to move back and forth between the digital and real world is a must. He also quotes Sherry Turkle, a psychologist, MIT professor, and the author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Ourselves, who wrote in a New York Times column, “Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits … we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions. We dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters.” 

Terms of Service and Modeling Responsible Behavior

Terms of service are an interesting problem for teachers, students, and parents. The terms of service for many online tools popular for educators to assign to students require users to be 13 years or older, but that part seems to be forgotten sometimes when teachers are assigning useful tools to younger students. As Jennifer Carey, a director of academic technology at the Ransom Everglades School in Florida points out in a blog post, just forgetting about these terms of service – just giving them a “wink and a nod”- can model behaviors that run contrary to the advice parents and teachers give kids about other kinds of sites that also require users to be 13 or older. In her post, Carey advises teachers to read and understand the terms before asking students to sign up for services that may violate federal statutes that regulate student information. "Anytime you are considering an online tool or service, it's important to ensure that the security of your students plays a key role in your decision," Carey writes. Parents also need to pay attention to the tools their children are being asked to use.

Why What You Do in the Real World Matters on Facebook

A pair of studies by researchers at the University of Colorado-Denver explored the ways in which people break connections with one another on Facebook. They found that high-school friends, acquaintances, and co-workers are particularly vulnerable to being "unfriended," and not always for the content posted. "We found that people often unfriend co-workers for their actions in the real world rather than anything they post on Facebook," one researcher said.

Online Grade Books Create Stress

Online grade books are meant to provide convenient, real-time access to grades for both parents and students, but as we have written about in this blog before, features such as e-mail alerts when grades drop below a certain level can lead to parental hovering and student anxiety. Parents and students also worry when grades aren’t posted as quickly as they think they should be. Some administrators also worry that all parents may not have the technology or know-how to participate, with one reading teacher in Florida reporting that fewer than 35% of her students' parents have logged into her online grade book. Does your school have an online grade book system? How often do you use it? Do you find it relieves or adds stress at home with your children?

Social Media Not Influencing TV Watching As Much as Hyped

The Nielsen-backed Council for Research Excellence has found that the vast majority of people watching prime-time TV are NOT using social media at the same time, even though that is what the folks at Twitter and Facebook would like us all to believe. Only 16.1% of viewers said they took part in "second screening" through mobile devices and laptops, with 11.4% posting to Facebook and 3.3% to Twitter. Also, social media prompted just 6.8% of respondents to check out a new show.

When ‘Liking” Means You Have Voided Your Right To Sue

Many little ones love Cheerios, but might downloading a coupon for the product void your legal rights? General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.

Instead, anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site.

Is this a new trend? Other companies besides General Mills are going in this direction. Big food companies are concerned about the growing number of consumers filing class-action lawsuits against them over labeling, ingredients, and claims of health threats. Almost every major gathering of industry executives has at least one session on fighting litigation. Of course, you have to wonder if this will spill over into individual cases. Will it be that you can’t claim cyberbullying if someone you have friended on Facebook starts harassing you?

All Screens Not Equal When It Comes To Kid’s Health

Sixth-graders who spent more time watching TV had a greater likelihood of consuming junk food and soda than did those who devoted an equal amount of time to playing video games or using the computer, University of Michigan researchers found. Two to six hours of screen time was associated with excess weight and higher blood pressure levels compared with less than an hour of electronic media use, the study found. Of course, maybe that’s because it is harder to eat when you are playing video games.