Computers and elementary aged kids

[sharon]

We are delving into letting Ian use the computer more regularly for the first time and I'd love to hear other's experiences, rules for their kids, any pitfalls they've encountered, etc.

We are pretty conservative about screen time and media. Before now, he has had no screen time during the week, and about an hour and a half a day on weekends (and other no school days) to watch PBS or approved shows in Netflix or DVDs. No commercial television, with a few exceptions for special events.

So my wife read about someone who differentiated between active computer use for creating and passive for, say, watching videos or playing a game. So we've been talking about that some, and letting him use the computer a bit during the week for creating purposes only. He has access to a few websites, and the parental controls don't let him open any others. He has email, but again we control who he can send and receive from. He creates art using KidPix and was starting to explore music with Garage Band yesterday.

What are your experiences with school age kids and computer usage?

[cissy]

My 7 yr old uses my computer to watch videos on Disney Jr, he also watches videos on Youtube. While on youtube he starts with train videos and sometimes it goes to train lego videos to lego videos or some other kinds of trains or even chuggington, dora, Thomas videos. He knows what he can and can't watch and he knows if it is bad to tell me and I start back over at trains again, even if it has music he doesn't like he says it is bad.

He also has his own computer (FILS old one) and we have games on there for him, he doesn't use it all the time but sometimes he does.

He has not done anything else on the computer and he is not ready to do anything else on the web but what he does now he is ok with.

[cissy]

I guess I should say that my 4 yr old is able to do the same stuff.

[irish]

Rory uses our laptop often. He watches videos on Youtube (mostly dinosaur stuff) and on Netflix. He also plays games on PBSKids, and uses another website for reading. Like Cissy's son, he knows what websites he can and can't go to, and if he veers off course on Youtube he tells us right away.

[smalltowngirl5]

Both of my kids will use the computer but we only go to the school website where they have links to sites the teachers recommend and will do some of the math, reading, science, etc. activites that are available to them.

[fungirls]

My DD's are 7 and 5 and they are allowed to use the computer but they only go to starfall.com and through Schoology, which is the 7-year-old's class website and the teacher has links to games on there that they are actually required to do for 5 minutes a day for math facts. We let the 5-year-old, who will start Kindergarten in September, do some of the kindergarten games to get her used to it as well.

[fungirls]

We learned at the Kindergarten open house that all of the 3rd through 5th graders ar our elementary school do their work on Chrome books during the school day so letting them use the computer now is preparing them for that as well.

[sharon]

Facetime is a big hit too. He chats with my MIL pretty regularly.

[sharon]

Part of what got us into this is that with Ian's dyslexia there are a couple of computer programs that have been very helpful to him. In second grade now, he's getting his first assignments to write short papers and doing them by hand was very hard for him because he gets so hung up on how to spell the words that he loses his thoughts.
So various educators we are working with have recommended that he use a program that does a web of his idea when he types them in, and then can help him turn these into an outline and then a sentence and paragraph format. Along with this is a program that does word prediction, so as he starts to type his word, a list of 5 possible words pops up and if his word is on that list he can quickly pick it and move on.
While no one wants the computer to completely replace him writing by hand, for these larger assignments it does work so much better for him.

[onlyoneboy]

Sharon - that program sounds like a great one. What is the name of it. That is something I want to get put into DS1's 504. Him being able to use a computer and type out his assignments rather than having to write them as he has such a hard time with writing.

[sharon]

Inspiration is the one that makes a web and then can transform it into outline and text. Co-writer is the word prediction.

[deannemdm]

DD uses mine a lot (age 11 5th grade) she will do web searches for research (big project on volcanoes) and i will usually watch as she does it, she also likes youtube and a few games. DS (age 4) also likes you tube, but started with going to sproutonline (preschool pbs), disney jr, nick jr, and pbskids. They all have games to practice and build skills (shape rec cognition, numbers, letters, patterns, etc-- he sometimes gets to regular pbs and games that are beyond his skill level (fractions, etc). Some focus more on soft skills like sharing, manners, taking turns, etc. I am not always successful in limiting time since I didn't start early on with it and now they have trouble getting off. Sounds like you have Ian very adjusted to screen time limits.

[sharon]

We have it set up automatically. There is a timer on the parental controls so after he's been on for I think it's 30 minutes, it shuts down unless one of us log in to give him more time, using our password. It gives him warnings at 10 more minutes and 5 more minutes, so he knows it's coming.
Now I can't remember what we set it for, but I think it was 30 minutes during the week and an hour on the weekends.

[merrr]

You HAVE to let Ian see Kid President and his videos

[sharon]

What is it?