ONLINE LEARNING AND SAFETY TOOLS FOR PARENTS AND KIDS DURING THE LOCK DOWN.
The world for months now has adjusted to a new reality that is unimaginable with the COVID 19 outbreak altering every aspect of human life, introducing abrupt changes to the way governments, businesses and communities at large operate.
During this time, the education sector has remained one of the most affected with over 1.5 Billion children worldwide out of school. This has given way to a distinctive rise of e- learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely via digital platforms.
Following this compelled shift to embrace intensive online learning, children will spend more time online now more than ever, hence the need to ensure their safety and confidence whilst exploring the internet. Some of these measures include:
Setting ground rules for children as they go online is a necessary measure to apply. This controls and limits some risks they’ll probably encounter online, some of which are limiting screen time, avoiding strangers, and sharing personal information.
Sharing personal information is among the first steps to observe while going online. Young people can be vulnerable, as they place a great deal of importance on developing an online personality, it is worthwhile to encourage them to be proactive about the risks associated with sharing personal information like phone numbers, house address or any form of their identity online.
While Parents cannot constantly monitor their kids’ online activities Family Link App does. With the App’s comprehensive features of parental control, parents can remotely set screen time, per app time, and generally keep an eye on their kids’ screen via their own device. Safe search also helps to block explicit sites or contents directly in the browser and search results.
Kids’ friendly applications for Learning
Applications such as YouTube Kids provides service on videos for educating and informing children. YouTube kids is a safer option for kids as it provides curated selections of content, parental control features, and filtering of videos deemed inappropriate viewing by kids 12 and under.
Google Classroom is an online learning tool for students which is an alternative to physical classroom education. Students can also leverage on this platform to continue their self learning activities even out of school.
Read Along is also a free speech based reading app designed to help primary grade kids learn to read just using their voices. The app encourages children to read aloud, making it an engaging way to learn and read. Bolo has hundreds of stories per language with recommendation.
Protect your family’s online privacy and security
What should parents and guardians do?
“Talk to children on time and often about risks involved in going online, agree on the laid down rules and engage in your kids’ online activities. Advice on Setting unique and strong passwords with letters, numbers and symbols. Checking and enabling your children’s online privacy setting, and their device setting across social media platforms can also be very helpful. By doing this you are guiding and helping them on the basic online safety measures for their benefits and others online”
Here are also some red flags parents should look out for while observing their kids especially when they are a little bit suspicious of their activities online;
- When they are being secretive of who they are talking to online
- When they switch off their screen when you come near their computer or device
- Using sexual languages you wouldn’t expect them to know.
Some other applications that could also help in ensuring safety of our children online, include;
As the world gradually opens, the outbreak of the pandemic is an awakening call to what revolutionizing digital education holds. It is glaring that the online presence of young ones will continue to be on the increase, the safety of our children cannot be overemphasized. Parents and teachers remain at the forefront in ensuring the online safety of children now and in the future.
