April 9th, 2009

KidZui is useful for parents, classrooms, labs

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 4:32 am

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Kid, KidZui, Corporate Communications, Productivity, Web Browsers, Apple Mac OS X, Games, Marketing, Internet, Operating Systems

KidZui is a kid-friendly web browser for OS X and Windows; it is also available as a Firefox add-on, making it compatible across all platforms. KidZui has a lot of strengths that make it very appealing for parents or elementary classroom computers. Although it does support a range of ages, this browser is very much directed at the primary set.

I’m not a big fan of the Internet-as-babysitter model: install a content filter and then let the kids surf. There is no substitute for monitoring your children and students while they’re online, nor is there any substitute for educating kids in safe, responsible use of the Internet. That being said, KidZui takes a different approach, by providing so much age-appropriate content that younger kids will be too busy to start poking around elsewhere.

Therein lies the value of KidZui: even if it didn’t have built in monitoring and filtering tools, KidZui aggregates games, learning content, social networking tools (it blocks FaceBook and MySpace, for example, but then suggests Webkinz and Club Penguin). The dashboard (at least that’s what I call the full-screen AOL-style main navigation page) features a rolling list of age-appropriate YouTube videos (I just watched one on raising baby pandas in captivity) without links to “related videos” that are invariably inappropriate.

The rest of the dashboard highlights games, learning resources, music, movies, and the ability to chat with approved (by parents/teachers) friends. You can also join KidZui for around $8 a month and add a homework helper, more detailed parental reporting, etc., but there is more than enough content in the free version to keep kids entertained.

I hesitate to fully recommend this for an elementary lab setting because it does require a login for each user (which must be managed by a parent/teacher/admin) and will be fairly bandwidth intensive. It also tends to be more “fun-oriented” than “learning-oriented” and lab time should really be reserved for directed learning activities. However, for enrichment, an inside recess, or just classroom computer time, this would be a great choice. A few generic logins would be a lot easier to manage (e.g., mrssmithpc1, mrssmithpc2, etc.). The filtering is generally not as important in a school as it may be at home since schools should have firewalls/content filters in place anyway.

KidZui, however, is one of the best kids’ environments I’ve seen on the web. It brings together a lot of resources and activities and encourages kids to explore in a safe way (kids actually earn points for clicking on new sites and resources). It’s certainly worth a recommendation to parents and elementary teachers.