With computers, laptops, iPads, and iPods it is hard to monitor everything your child does. Sometimes it is hard to find things that are age appropriate and safe for your young child. When the boys were young I didn’t really have these problems. There weren’t iPads or iPods and they didn’t use the computer like kids do now. However, Honey is only 7 and these electronics and gadgets are a way of life for her.
One thing she enjoys is watching videos. I often find her browsing videos on the internet and think of all the things she could find by accident. She is usually looking for her shows she watches and cute animal cartoons and videos but you never know what is going to pop up when they select a video. This is where Kidobi comes in, a child safe environment where they can watch videos and make the most of their screen time.
Technology is a dominant force in our children’s lives. In fact, children spend more time with screens, than they do on any other activity except sleep. In comparison, the average school week, once you factor in summer holidays and PA days, is only 18 hours! Since technology dominates our kids’ lives, it’s crucial that parents are able to give their children content that is educational, engaging and in keeping with their values. Kidobi is striving to make that happen.
We know that when parents are involved in their child’s education, the learning outcomes are greater. In order for parents to be involved they need easy and intuitive tools. That’s why we give parents the tools and information they need to make screen time count.
With my complimentary 6 month membership in hand I decided to do a little recon and check out the site. I even got Honey involved since the site is for children. Honey is a little above the average age of 2-6 but she ended up having fun with the videos. As a parent I can go in and either manually create a playlist for my child or let Kidobi create one for me based on some criteria.
Once you are all set up one of the features that I love is adding interest to my child’s profile. The interest you select will help find videos tailored to what your child likes. This makes learning fun!
To create a playlist click on the playlist wizard. From their you can choose the content your looking for such as language, life skills, math and more. When you select one of these skills you can further hone in on what you want your child to learn. For example if I select math I can chose further: measurement, time, sorting, etc. Or if I want them all I can let Kidobi select for me.
I decided to select “Telling Time” since this was something Honey was recently learning at school. I then selected “Generate Playlist” and at the bottom appears a strip of videos.
I can either stop here or I can edit and save the playlist. A couple reasons to edit a play list would be to check the customer ratings and to narrow down to the correct age range. I wish when you generated a playlist you could do that first but so far I’ve only found that you can do it afterwards. You can see in the photo below that each video has the appropriate age of the video and the ratings, including parent ratings.
Canadian children’s website Kidobi has been named the Best Streaming Video Platform in the Preschool category at the inaugural iKids Awards last week in New York. The 2013 iKids Awards were designed to highlight the best digital offerings for kids. The winners were selected unanimously by a panel of five industry judges.
As a parent of a young child I love this idea of being able to tailor what your child watches to their own interest and slip in a little learning on the side. I encourage you to check out Kidobi on Facebook.and
Does your child spend time on these devices? What do you do to make their time productive?