Here’s something that any of you parents and teachers might be interested in.
Glubble
is a very impressive browser plugin that adds parental controls to Firefox. Glubble transforms Firefox into a locked down environment where kids can only surf approved sites, while parents can easily log into a restriction-free account for normal web surfing.
While in college, one of the many career paths I considered involved online educational software that would require kids to finish daily lessons–in logic, foreign languages and game theory– before being able to log on to their computers. Glubble has us halfway there…
(via Read/Write Web)
Technorati Tags: media, technology, web2.0, education, learning, community, teaching
4 responses so far ↓
rob // July 7, 2007 at 2:53 am |
a brilliant idea and it looks like it’s well implemented. the real trick though is coming up with a solution for teens. my thirteen year old niece recently got a laptop and i set it up for her. man, i slapped every filter i could onto that machine so nothing untoward could come up. within an hour, having never used a computer before, she knew how to switch them all off (not that they had worked all that well in the first place).
i lose sleep thinking about what filth she’s going to stumble on while online. i think about what i was like the first time i was let loose on an unsupervised internet connection and i shudder. of course, she’s a good kid, and nothing like i was, but there’s always that fear. by the time i actually have kids i’ll probably just move us into some luddite compound where i won’t have to worry about such things
rob // July 8, 2007 at 3:46 pm |
i’ve been thinking about this over the weekend and i’m surprised there aren’t more of these lads available for browsers. surely some pasty faced, friendless wonder out there has developed a plug-in that blocks everything except obsessively written video game blogs and dodgy porn. y’know, strip the internet back to just what the user wants.
realityonastick // July 8, 2007 at 4:15 pm |
Hey Rob: Nice comments, as usual. It’s funny how getting older has us worrying about all the dangerous elements awaiting the next generation. I have been thinking about raising kids quite a lot these days, and I can’t help wondering how protective I’m going to be about online filth. I mean, there are some things that you just can’t unsee.
I’m sure we’re not far from seeing the first game and porn only mod for an internet browser;-)
Sean Bannister // September 10, 2007 at 1:19 am |
Yeah there is a real need for good child and teen safe software.