As you gear up for the back-to-school season, check out some of Common Sense Media’s favorite Homework Help apps for kids!  These mobile apps keep reference materials at kids’ fingertips and present topics in a visually appealing or interactive way.

Geo Walk HD – 3D World Fact Book (2011) 
Brilliantly designed app about Earth’s people, places and more.

Available for iPad.

Audubon Birds—A Field Guide to North American Birds 

Invaluable reference tool for North American Bird Watchers.

Available for Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.

Britannica Kids: Rainforests 

Interactive Tool with games, videos and lots of learning.

Available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.

Google Earth 

Kids tour the world with the swipe of a finger.

Available for Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.

Star Walk: 5 Star Astronomy Guide 

In-depth, detailed, and beautiful astronomy app.

Available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.

World Atlas HD 

Fab tool provides the world at your fingertips.

Available for iPad.

Ultimate Dinopedia: The Most Complete Dinosaur Reference Ever 

Realistic art in dino-lover’s dream database.

Available for iPad.

US Geography by Discovery Education 

Learn about terrain, culture, climate, and so much more.

Available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.

Solar System for iPad 

Well-written interactive book with lots of multimedia.

Available for iPad.

Shakespeare in Bits: Macbeth 

An extraordinary study aide for mature-themed play.

Available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.

Location information is often obtained using the GPS capabilities now included in most cell phones.  This location information can be used by applications (apps) and services on a cell phone such as Verizon’s Family Locator, social networking apps like Foursquare or Facebook Places, and navigation programs such as VZ Navigator and Google Maps.  Customers are usually required to sign up for or purchase these apps and services.

If you want to prevent apps and services from using GPS to determine your cell phone’s location, you can typically do so under a “Settings” or “Options” tab on your phone.  To simplify things for you, we have provided step-by-step instructions for disabling GPS on the most common types of phones sold by Verizon Wireless.  It’s important to remember that turning off GPS on your phone will not affect the use of GPS to determine your phone’s location when making emergency calls to 911, and your phone can usually be located by public safety officials in the case of an emergency. 

See below for more details!  (Note: disabling GPS on your device may affect the functionality of some apps and other services such as weather, maps, and turn by turn directions).

To Disable GPS on an Android Device:

Step 1: Select the Settings Button from the Main Screen

Step 2: Select the Location Tab

Step 3: Turn Location Settings off by “unchecking” gray boxes to the right

 
Warning Screens for each setting:

To Disable GPS on the iPhone:

Step 1: Go to Settings on the Main Screen

Step 2: Select General from the Settings Menu

Step 3: Turn “Location Services” to Off

To Disable GBS on a Blackberry:

Step 1: Go to Options on the Main Screen

Step 2: Select “Advanced Options”

Step 3: Select “GPS”

Step 4: On the “GPS Services” Tab, select “E911 Only”

Step 5: Also on the same page, disable “Location Aiding”

To Disable GPS on a Feature Phone like the LG Voyager pictured here:

 Step 1: Go to Settings & Tools on the Main Screen

Step 2: Select Phone Settings

Step 3: Select Location

Step 4: Select “E911” Only

To Disable GPS on a Palm:

Step 1: Select the Menu Button

Step 2: Select the Location Services button:

Step 3: Turn Auto Locate Off

5 Essential Facts of Digital Life

• Kids are the creators. It’s all about participating, communicating, making music, images, videos, and posting written content. And the content that’s there? Kids must be able to know if it’s credible or not.
• Everything happens in front of a vast, invisible, and often anonymous audience.
• Once something is out there, it doesn’t go away. Everything leaves a digital footprint.
• Information cannot be controlled. Anything can be copied, changed, and shared instantly.
• Distance and anonymity separate actions and consequences. Kids think they can get away with unethical or unacceptable behavior because they don’t see immediate consequences.

Our kids use media differently

We may think of our kids’ online, mobile, and technological activities as “digital life,” but to them, it’s just life. Their world is as much about creating media as it is about consuming it. Media devices have converged and become extremely powerful and portable. Phones aren’t simply for phone calls but for listening to music, sending texts, filming videos, snapping and sharing photos, and accessing the Internet. Our kids use their computers, to do their homework, but they also use them to socialize, stream video, created movies and songs. And they can communicate or connect 24/7 from just about any location.

What’s at stake?

We want our kids to make great decisions so they can take advantage of the powerful technology that fills their lives. But in order to make good choices, kids must know how the digital world works. The very nature of their constantly connected culture means kids must understand the concept of privacy so that what they post and create won’t hurt them or embarrass them at some point down the line. The fact that much of digital communication can be anonymous means that consequences can be separated from actions which can lead to irresponsible or disrespectful behavior. Much of the task of childhood involves figuring out who you are. But in digital life, anything said or posted can live on indefinitely and create undesired reputations.

The stakes are high because our kids’ technological abilities can eclipse their maturity and judgment. Unrestricted access to information and people can mean age-inappropriate contact and content or it can mean a wealth of information and experience. The difference between a great experience and an iffy one lies in the decisions kids make. Just as kids learn to swim, eat properly, or drive a car, they need to know how to live in the digital world responsibly and respectfully. Their ultimate success depends on their abilities to use digital media to create, collaborate, and communicate well with others. Those who really know how to use digital tools will be able to harness their awesome power.

Advice for Parenting in a Digital World

Teach kids the skills they need to use technology wisely and well. It’s hard to gate-keep in a world with no fences. Parents have lost control of the flow of information to our kids who see too much, too soon.  We no longer hear conversations or see what our kids create and share with others. Since we cannot cover their eyes, or shadow them everywhere, we need to teach them how to see and how to behave responsibly.

Help them self-reflect before they self-reveal. This doesn’t come naturally to kids — and certainly not in a world where anyone can be a rock star on YouTube.

Explain the essential facts of how the digital world works. They understand cut and paste. But wait until it happens to them!

Keep an open mind. We don’t see the world the way our kids do. We don’t help our kids when we judge their lives through the lens of a non-digital world. It’s important for us to understand that our kids will spend their lives in a connected world where everyone participates in communication and creation.

Don’t be afraid. Parents can’t afford to be technophobic. Our kids adopt technologies faster than we do.  That means they’re often way out in front of us. This fact upsets the parent/child relationship.  So get in the game. Have your kids show you how to do something if you don’t know.

Share wisdom. Kids don’t understand the implications of their actions. But we do. We have to remember to extend our basic parenting wisdom to the digital world. We teach kids to use their words, play nicely with others, respect their teachers – now we have to extend that to a vast, invisible world.

Pass along your values. One of the most important jobs of parenting is instilling in our kids the values we cherish. But in a world where actions are often divorced from consequences, where kids can be anonymous, and where they aren’t face-too-face with the people they communicate our kids can lose their way. As parents, we have to be able to translate our values into the digital world and help kids understand the implications of their actions.

Seek balance. It’s hard to know how much freedom to give our kids. We want them to explore, enjoy, communicate, and create. We also want to be sure they are protected or they know how to protect themselves. If our kids are going to thrive with digital media, we must balance the negative with the positive, privacy with protection. As our children grow, they need more independence and privacy. But parents have to be sure kids know how to be safe and responsible before letting them loose. Our kids need to see both the possibilities and the perils so they can act responsibly and seize all that is wondrous and have it enrich their lives as people and citizens.

Our kids are growing up in public

When we were growing up, a permanent record was something your school kept. Now, our kids create lasting records of their lives whenever they post something online. In a world where anything can be copied, pasted, altered and distributed in the blink of an eye to a vast invisible audience, kids must understand that they hold the key to what kind of reputation they create for themselves.

Help kids help themselves

As parents, it’s up to us to help our kids understand the consequences of their actions and prepare them for the fact that the user name “FatGreenWizard” — which might have been cute in 5th grade — won’t be so adorable at that first job interview. We have to help them think long term about posting those pictures that will inevitably come back to bite them on areas of the body that were all too likely on display in the offending snapshots. Here are a few rules of the road that will help our kids as they grow up in public:

1. Guard your privacy. What people know about you is up to you.


2. Protect your reputation. Self-reflect before you self-reveal. What’s funny or edgy today could cost you tomorrow.


3. Nothing is private online. Anything you say or do can be copied, pasted, and sent to gazillions of people without your permission.


4. Assume everyone is watching. There’s a huge, vast audience out there. If someone is your friend’s friend, they can see everything.


5. Apply the Golden Rule. If you don’t want it done to you, don’t do it to someone else.


6. Watch the clock. A virtual hug never matches a real one. Balance your life.


7. Choose wisely. Not all content is appropriate. You know what we mean.


8. Don’t hide. Using anonymity to cloak your actions doesn’t turn you into a trustworthy, responsible human being.


9. Think about what you see. Just because it’s online doesn’t make it true.


10. Be smart, be safe. Not everyone is who they say they are. But you know that.

Rules of the Road for Kids

Verizon had a strong presence at the Family Online Safety Institute’s 4^th Annual Conference, “Internet Freedom, Safety & Citizenship: A Global Call to Action.”  This year’s conference included 400 participants, 90 speakers and 30 exhibitors! 

Aside from Verizon’s role as a co-sponsor of this extraordinary event, Verizon Wireless’ West Area President, Tami Erwin, delivered an inspiring keynote address, and Jack McArtney represented Verizon on the panel “Tech Talk: the latest tools to empower and protect.”  In his opening remarks, Stephen Balkam, CEO of FOSI, even mentioned that he uses Verizon Wireless Usage Controls on his daughter’s cell phone!

The FOSI agenda covered a wide range of hot topics, including panels on “ Digital Citizenship: Safety, literacy and ethics for life in a digital world” and “The Mobile Future,” as well as breakout sessions on cyberbullying, the challenges and opportunities of social networking, behavioral issues in online safety, and location-based services.  One highlight included a teen performance by theatre students from the local Wilson High School, who wrote and performed skits about how technology has affected their social lives and family relationships. 

Check out the must-see video below entitled “Go Figure,” that includes the latest data and statistics about kids’ online and wireless use.

You can get a first-hand look at the conference by viewing the FOSI 2010 Day One Highlights video below, as well as checking out the #fosi2010 Twitter feed!

Times have changed. We live in an increasingly connected culture in which younger generations are becoming more and more comfortable sharing personal and private information online. In an effort to educate teens about how to be smart about what they post and share online, Verizon has joined Ad Council’s new collaborative initiative, the Internet Safety Coalition. This unprecedented effort unites more than 40 industry leaders in helping to encourage teens to act responsibly online.

Verizon, along with other organizations such as Google, Facebook, Common Sense Media, MTV Networks, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, have developed a single and clear teen-targeted message: Beware What You Share. The message informs teens that posting isn’t private, and if they wouldn’t broadcast information in real life, then it’s not smart to broadcast it online where it can remain forever.

Think about it: what if you had to wear everything you posted online on a t-shirt? Parents and Teens: Check out this video that shows people wearing what they’re sharing.

What do you think? Have you ever been in a situation in which you regretted posting something online or sending something via text message? How did you handle it? What did you learn?

It’s a culture of sharing

Our kids live in a culture of sharing that has forever changed the concept of privacy. In a world where everyone is connected and anything created can get copied, pasted, and sent to thousands of people in a heartbeat, privacy starts to mean something different than simply guarding personal or private information. Each time your child fills out a profile without privacy controls, comments on something, posts a video, or texts a picture of themselves to friends, they potentially reveal themselves to the world.

Help kids manage their privacy.

• Explain to kids that they can have some control over their privacy
• Make sure social network privacy settings are set to the most restricted levels
• Explain to kids that what they post is never as private as they think
• Encourage kids to self-reflect before they self-reveal
• Make sure kids know to respect other people’s privacy

Why privacy matters

Digital life is very public and often permanent. If our kids don’t protect their privacy, what they do online will create digital footprints that wander and persist. Something that happens on the spur of the moment — a funny picture, a certain post — can resurface years later. And if kids aren’t careful, their reputations can get away from them and third parties — like marketers or potential employers — can access what kids thought was private information.

Your kids may think they just sent something to a friend — but that friend can send it to a friend’s friend, who can send it to their friends’ friends, and so on. That’s how secrets become headlines and how false information spreads fast and furiously. The stakes only rise when we remember that everything takes place in front of huge invisible audiences. Kids’ deepest secrets can be shared with thousands of people they’ve never even met.

New technologies make controlling privacy more challenging. With GPS-enabled cell phones and location-sharing programs, kids can post their whereabouts. This information can go out to friends, strangers, and companies who will show them ads targeted to their location. 

Explain that nothing is really private. No matter what kids think, privacy settings aren’t infallible. It’s up to kids to protect themselves by thinking twice before they post something that could damage their reputation or that someone else could use to embarrass or hurt them.

Teach kids to keep personal information private. Help kids define what information is important for them to keep private when they’re online. We recommend that kids not share their addresses, phone numbers, or birth dates.

Make sure your kids use privacy settings on their social network pages. Encourage kids to really think about the nature of their relationships (close friends, family, acquaintances, strangers) and adjust their privacy settings accordingly.

Remind kids to protect their friends’ privacy. Passing along a rumor or identifying someone in a picture (called “tagging”) affects their privacy. If your kids are tagged in friends’ photos, they can ask to have the photos or the tags removed. But there’s not too much they can do beyond that.

Establish a few hard-and-fast rules about posting. No nude or semi-nude photos or videos — ever. Not online, not via mobile phone (known as “sexting”). No pictures of doing drugs, drinking, or having sex.

Remind kids that the Golden Rule applies. What goes around comes around. If kids spread a rumor or talk trash about a teacher, they can’t assume that what they post will stay private. Whatever they say can come back to haunt them in more ways than they can imagine.

Help kids think long term. Everything leaves a digital footprint. Whatever gets created may never go away. If they don’t want to see it tomorrow, they’d better not post it today.

Do you allow your kids to use social networking sites?  Has your child’s online privacy been compromised?  What did you do?

Technology makes it so easy for kids to connect and share things with friends and family no matter where they are. But these connections can come with costs if kids aren’t careful. Learning to protect personal identity information, creating strong passwords, and being cautious when downloading programs and files are crucial to the safety and security of the digital devices kids use, as well as the information those devices store. Otherwise, kids can expose themselves and their families to digital threats like computer viruses, data and identity theft, and hacking.

To understand digital safety and security, you’ll need to learn some new words: phishing, malware, spyware, spam, and yes, even junk. These greedy little programs attach themselves to respectable-looking software – for example, a downloadable game that looks really cool – and then wreak havoc once installed on your computer. Security programs can block them, but one of the most important weapons is teaching kids to treat their devices and information as the truly valuable things they are.

If kids don’t protect their personal information, there are many potential risks: damage to the hardware, identity theft, or financial loss. But children may not realize they are putting their information in jeopardy, because the warning signs aren’t always obvious.

A friend might ask for your child’s computer password to play a game, and then access your child’s private email account. Or your child might use a file-sharing program that passes along a virus to your computer. To participate in an online contest, your tween might be asked to provide personal identity information such as a home phone number, address, date of birth, or your Social Security number, all of which opens up the family to the risk of identity theft. Just like in real life, kids have to know who to trust with information. It’s as true in the digital world as the real world.

Parent tips for all kids

Master the fine art of password creation. It can actually be fun to develop really good passwords. (See more details on how to do this below.) Strong passwords are a key defense against unauthorized access to your information, as well as identify theft.

Know the difference between information worth sharing and private information. There are many ways you can share your ideas and creativity online, but personal information should remain private. Never input personal identity information such as phone numbers, addresses, or your date of birth in order to download something. And never, ever give Social Security numbers or credit card information.

Be very careful with what you download. Don’t download free games or videos to your computer. These programs often come with spyware and viruses that will land your computer in the shop – and you in hot water.

Tips on creating a perfect password

Protect yourself — and your stuff — with strong passwords that safeguard your digital data.

Use these tips to help you do it:

• Don’t use passwords that are easy to guess – such as your nickname or your pet’s name. People who know you well can guess these kinds of passwords.

• Don’t use any private identity information in your password. Identity thieves can use this information to pretend to be you.

• Don’t use a word in the dictionary as a password. Hackers use programs that will try every word in the dictionary to guess passwords.

• Do use combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols. These are harder to crack than regular words because there are more combinations to try.

Internet Safety and You is an interactive online resource aimed at helping students and families become safe and responsible Internet users. Featuring Garfield the cat and his friends, kids and teens work through four learning modules that address online safety, cyberbullying, forms of media, and distinguishing fact from opinion. They learn important concepts through an engaging narrative-based animated segment. Then they collaborate with Garfield and his friends for guided practice. Finally, they apply what they have learned through interactive challenges. Additional resources for parents and teachers ensure that kids and teens have the additional support they need.

The site also features an online Safety Teacher’s Guide with the following objectives:

Internet Safety and You is a collaborative project of the Virginia Department of Education, the Professor Garfield Foundation, the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, and the Verizon Foundation.

The Verizon Foundation and Frontline developed a series of digital workshops for parents. This series of interactive resources will help parents deepen their knowledge of how digital technology is transforming our society and to gain insights into understanding, analyzing and participating in our technology-infused world.

The digital workshops include activities for adults to learn how to manage their family’s media usage, to become a better caregiver to the “digital natives” in their lives, to assess the impact of technology in education, and to explore the effects of multitasking on our brains and much more.

The second digital workshop in this series, ‘How Google Saved a School ,’ focuses on new information resources in the classroom. Teachers are tapping into technology and digital media for learning. Watch ‘How Google Saved a School’ and discuss the hype and the hopes for improving education through technology. Visit the Frontline website here to view other tips.