Mohr or Less

Video

Playing with a web cam!
From Kory’s Cell

Always encouraging when kids, especially little ones, really seem to get into technology. This is one of the reasons why I sincerely enjoy working at a school; seeing children interact with technology and learning how it can aid them in many aspects of life from helping to manage their finances to applying for college to communicating, etc.Technology also has a supposed “dark side” to it which, I think, the media has a large part of over hyping, such as the constant stories about MySpace, Facebook, etc. Many of these stories are probably isolated events, however, since these social networks are wide spread and growing at an amazing rate, the media makes an effort to evolve these stories into a national or even global phenomenon.As educators, I feel it’s our responsibility to effectively teach children how to be safe on the Internet while encouraging them to use it. Possibly a fine line and maybe even a contradiction? Maybe. However, if we also smother our kids and prevent them from exploring in a safe manner, we risk them exploring in a manner which could be frightening or even, God forbid, dangerous and ultimate.

That’s why we encourage our own kids to explore yet in a safe manner. Our webcam runs on the internal campus network (LAN) through a server I’ve set up for inventory and asset management using OCS Inventory NG (very cool if anyone’s ever looking for an open-source inventorying application!) that’s password protected. That way, we’re teaching our little ones how to be safe on the Internet yet have fun with it too!

Okay, off my pedestal now.

Filed under: Geek Stuff, Parenting & Kids by kory