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Screen Drain

May 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Photo of my desk

Before becoming a Dad, I use to spend most of my time in front of a screen.

I was constantly transitioning from one screen to the next. My choice of screens was my smart phone, my laptop, my iPad, a TV, and one of the many monitors I had in my office.

Screens Can Drain You

For me I know how powerful a screen can be and how much it can drain us. Just to think that a screen consumed more time than the quality time I should have been dedicating to my loved ones, makes me a bit embarrassed.

Making the Best Use of Screens

Every day I seek ways to make sure that time in front of the screen is used with a purpose, aligned to business, or to clearly communicate with those I truly love.

We don’t spend much time in front of a TV. Last summer we decided to cancel Cable and we use Hulu + on occasions to watch some shows and movies.

My Toddler and her First Screen Experience

My daughter, who is a bit over 2 years old now, gets monitored with her screen time.

Her first screen interactions where with my iPad. It was useful since we where able to complement in teaching her colors, numbers, and the ABC’s. We made sure those interactions where balanced out with other learning exercises far away from the screen.

Toddler’s 1st Videos

Daniela’s 1st videos where seen on an iPad or computer monitor.

Most of the videos our daughter preferred watching were created by Payasa Agapita and her sidekick Che-Ché.

Payasa Agapita and Che-Ché have evolved over time. Their videos have become more educational and practical in nature.  They are useful for parents and teachers when it comes to teaching them numbers, colors, or the vowels.

For bilingual families, there is an opportunity for you to have your kids watch videos in Spanish so they can understand and learn Spanish while having fun with these two creative and funny clowns.

Most of my screen time, when it is not tied to work, is watching something that is friendly enough for my daughter to watch.

How much time do you invest in front of a screen and how do you make sure your kids have a good balance with the many screens that surround them?

 

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Independence One Toddler Step at a Time

January 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Tiny Baker

As a parent, one of your main goals should be to have your children go on their own and embrace the world without you needing to be there.

Every time my daughter accomplishes something that gives her more independence, I get extremely happy.

Coaching her to build Courage

I don’t want to overprotect my daughter because I know it can halt her growth in many aspects. I want her to build the courage to do things and not have to wait for anyone.

I want her to pave her own path.  Only then can she change the world by making sure she guides herself and expects more of herself every day.

Progress Makes me Smile

On multiple occasions I have seen how my daughter opens the iPad and searches for her favorite applications. Other things she does are related to self sustaining herself in the future from attempting to put on her clothes, to cooking with her mom by cutting mushrooms, and even making cupcakes or muffins; she is always seeking ways to do things on her own.

She will ask for help when she does not get the result or can’t find something. For the most part she is exploring and observing what she wants to learn and do next..

I smile when I see that she has discovered something new to do on the iPad or that she figured out how to put on a piece of wardrobe. On most occasions her mom and I have taught her how to do certain tasks but  most of the time she has figured it out on her own by observing me like inserting her favorite movie into the Blueray/Dvd.

I remember reading in Steve Jobs Biography (Affiliate link) that one of his goals was to make the iPad and iOS devices very intuitive and easy to handle. I wonder what other things can we do during our days with our daughter that things can be intuitive and she can learn on her own vs. us taking her over every detail.

I have to tell Steve that based on my personal experiences with my daughter, I can’t see how they could have made it any easier it is our job now to get into that kind of thinking where critical tasks that our kids need to learn can become second nature to them early on.

As I see my daughter exploring new things and with progress, we are committed to keep the momentum going.

Everything will be Under Control, One day…

One day I want her to say Dad I have everything under control.

But until then I will handle the next task at being independent; potty training.

P.S. Thanks Aaron Manley (owner of  Motorphilia) for helping me understand this a lot better in a simple 45 minute conversation on your long term goals as a parent almost a year ago. 

Recommended Reading

Filed Under: Family, Papá Heroes, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Technology and iPad apps for Toddlers

June 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

My daughter is about to turn 18 months in a few days and different to how her mom and I were brought up, she has been immersed in technology from day one. The first time I shared a picture of her was when I predicted that a female blogger was born on my blog. Given that mom and dad run an IT Consulting Firm, does not help the fact that gadgets are laying around which are used for work but our daughter can find a way to play with them.

When it comes to technology our daughter interacts with technology mainly via IOS apps.

IOS Apps ( iPad & iPhone )

Now that my daughter is able to talk she requests her favorite apps on the iPad by name such as Toy Story Read-Along, Wood Puzzle,  Curious George at the Zoo, GarageBand and lately the Elmo Loves ABCs app.

She really enjoys apps that have music or music videos.

Youtube

Since our daughter enjoys Music, I tend to find Music Videos that play music in all genres and appropriate for her. I also recommend that if you’re a stay at home dad  (parent) like me, it might be a good idea to have more than one monitor (It helps with productivity). Overall her favorite videos come from our friend Payasa Agapita. Agapita is a bilingual clown who primarily creates videos in Spanish (great if you want kids to learn Spanish).

Here is her latest video including her clown pals Che-Che and Potoco with some really cute dogs.

Since our daughter is still developing in all areas (language, physical, sensory skills) we keep her immersed with technology but thankfully we have a balance keeping her busy doing manual things. As much as she enjoys watching videos online and playing her favorite iPad apps, she also enjoys going outside smelling Basil in our garden, playing with rice, water,  reading, painting, and searching for the moon at night.

What technologies do your kids like and interact with?

What restrictions do you put upon them?

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Kids and the Internet

July 14, 2011 by 6 Comments

 

I’ve been keeping track of the recent discussions in regards to the Internet and family.  Safety is important for any Wi-Fi connected home regardless of there being a family or someone living on their own.  Facebook, Google, twitter, and YouTube combine to form the basis for this new social and interactive atmosphere for us to not only connect with one another but also to seek whatever information we wish.  Understanding how interconnected our homes are with the world is very important to parenting in this day and age so I wanted to share what I’ve observed from children growing up these days who are exposed to today’s entertainment and media outlets.

Photo by Sailor Coruscant

Part time, I work for an entertainment company that mainly has me setting up and handling the extra entertainment for expensive and lavish mitzvahs.  I am constantly exposed to children of this age group and in my experience I’ve seen the enormous range in which they interact with one another and their environment.  One thing is very clear; kids between the ages of 9 and 13 will blow your mind by how much they know.  It will shock you because your first thought is, “How the HELL do you know that!? HOW old are you again?”

We’re not living in the age of blurred out adult channels and potential magazines hidden in places that an adventurous and curious adolescent will find if he or she looks around the house hard enough.   What was once considered rated R level violence can now be seen on prime time television and even in cartoons aired late night on Cartoon Network (anyone familiar with “Super Jail” at all?).  I’d bring up something to my coworker from a film or tv show that I would consider to be for my age group and, next thing I know, the nearest group of kids chime into our conversation! They’re ability to connect with me about what I’d consider adult interests as a 24-year-old stop baffling me after the first few parties.  My last “post” was a list so I decided I’d stick to the familiar style, as I break down the average preteen with Internet access:

 

  1. Kids probably know just as much as you do: When the word “sex” first came up, it was when I asked my mother where we came from.  At 7-years-old at the time, I was handed a book with illustrations that told me what I needed to know.  Today, if a kid with a developed literary comprehension hears the word “sex” all he has to do is google it.  And thanks to the modern age…
  2. High Speed Internet= High Speed Absorbtion: I remember the day when I first used search engines with a 56k modem speed.  Images took a minute to load; not to mention how long it took high content websites.  Today, web pages and all sorts of content load at the blink of an eye.  Now it all depends on how quickly the brain receives the information that limits children. With the Internet in their hands, they are able to learn everything and anything they want to know about very quickly.  Thank God for parental locks, right?
  3. Parent Locks are virtually useless:  Some parents see the best way to control their children from content “not suitable for their age” is by taking advantage of some sort of parental lock.  To me, that’s very much like locking a gorilla in a cage made of toothpicks.  Simply because if they don’t figure out how to get passed it, they’ll just get the info from a friend whose parents don’t use parental controls on internet usage.  And with friends comes my last important point.
  4. The social network shares all: When a kid reaches that age where he or she definitely knows how to read and write, they have the capacity to learn whatever they can because they have finally reached that level of comprehension.  They begin the adventure of absorbing whatever peaks their curiosity.  Now take this adventurous child, and put he or she into a small band of adventurers.  If Indiana Jones were actually the name of an adventurer’s squad, there would be nothing left uncovered in the world; no supernatural relic NOT in a museum.  Truth is, the Internet turns them into a super adventurers squad. They would cover every ground much faster as a group than on their own.  Kids fill in each other’s gaps and holes when it comes to things they are learning and figuring out.  So whatever a kid didn’t google last night, their friends will tell them about it today because they most certainly did.

 

As adults, we tend to forget how quickly we grew up.  The newer generations are reaching new levels of acceleration to the point that it is the parents’ job to make sure they don’t misuse what they learn from the world and end up making terrible mistakes.  We can’t stop our children from learning; we can only control how they use the information given to them.  Kids learn quickly and the urgency of chiming in on what is fed to their brains is key to protecting them.  After all, would you rather them learn about mature content from you or from an 8-year-old that just discovered what online pornography is?

 

Photo by Sailor Coruscant

Filed Under: Family, Online Safety, Papá Heroes Tagged With: , ,

Social Networks Backup Strategies

July 13, 2011 by 1 Comment

Every hero must have a plan to tackle the situations or problems the daily routine presents.  This is also true for parents (the true heroes of our present age).  But, we know from experience that no plan is executed perfectly as it was design.  So, the hero must always be prepared to elaborate a backup plan, in case the original scheme goes haywire.

 

Photo Credit tiarasphotogblog.blogspot.com/

 

As good administrators and planners, we must have a backup plan.  In the digital realm, backup strategies are essential for safeguarding our information (text, photos, videos, presentations, etc.), and to restore them in case the hardware or the unexpected fails.  Good backup strategies are a must to preserve our most cherished moments in time (our first child birthday, the first tooth, when he/she starts walking).

Before the era of Facebook and Twitter, backup plan were limited to copying our hard drive data to a secondary disk.  Very simple.  Nowadays, most of our data is shared in the so-called “cloud”.  Our photos, comments, interactions, videos, and so on, are shared with our friends using Facebook, Twitter, the new Google+, MySpace (barely alive), LinkedIn, and the list goes on.  Do you have a backup plan for all that data?  Do I need to backup my social graph (i.e. all my social data stored in a remote network)?

Think about it.  Remember the Amazon crash?  What would happen if there was some data loss in the recovery process?  If you didn’t backup your social data, where are you going to retrieve it from?  Maybe is in your local hard drive.  Or your phone.  But I bet that without considering backing up your social data, there will be some irretrievable data loss.

So, here is a helpful guide on how to backup and restore your social data on selected networks.  Let’s start with the most ubiquitous of the social networks, Facebook.

How to backup your social data in Facebook

Login to your Facebook account, and then, go to Account Settings.

 

Click in the Download Your Information “learn more”.  The following screen will appear.

Click the “Download” button.

 

 

Click the “Download” button (Facebook wants to be sure that you are requesting to download your social data).

 

Click the “Okay” button and that’s it.  As shown in the box, you will receive an email when your file (zip file) is ready to download.  Pretty simple and straightforward.

How to backup your Tweets

During my research for this article, I tried to find a backup function (a la Facebook) in Twitter.  Apparently (I may be wrong), Twitter does not offer a function for backing up your tweets, direct messages (DMs), followers, following, lists.  Maybe is not an essential tool for the Twitterverse (the Library of Congress is currently archiving every tweet since 2006).

I will show you how to backup your Twitter social graph using a tool named TweetBackup (tweetbackup.com).  It is powered by Backupify (I run this tool weekly for Google Docs and, of course, Twitter).

Here we go!

Go to tweetbackup.com and Sign Up.

Press the “Authorize app” button

Enter your email address (for backup notification status).  Also, check (default) or uncheck the message suggested.

 

If you are comfortable with the warnings, click “Sign Up!”.

 

 

 

Click on “Please login”.

 

 

Again, press the “Authorize app” button.

 

 

Violá! You are in the application main page.

 

Check the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for some insight on the capabilities and scope of this application.

There are lots of third-party applications for backing up your tweets.  I chose this one because of its simplicity and ease of use.

Do you backup frequently your social graph?  Are you using any tools, beside the ones shown, for your backup strategy?  Do you see any shortcomings in these apps?

Let us know.

Filed Under: Education, Papá Heroes, Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

iPad as an Educational Tool

June 22, 2011 by 5 Comments

It’s no secret the iPad is a device that appeals to many people. If your young, games and social media, as well as the iPod will appeal to you. If your an adult, productivity and utility are mainly what you will look for. If your even older, then newspapers and books are for you. But what about the children? Some say games, coloring books, definitely right. But there is more.

For this post we observed a child that just passed his third birthday. I observed how he used iOS devices for a couple of months, using an iPhone and a newly received iPad. What I observed truly caught me by surprise. There is definitely a big improvement on how children behave when using technology starting at a very young age. What I saw was incredibly good.

The, then two year old child, spent some time handling the iPhone while at his house or when he went shopping and sitting in his baby carriage. You could say, what’s great about it? Well nothing, just that he could always find his way to his favorite songs whenever he wanted. Remember this is a two year old that still doesn’t know how to read.

Among other things observed; he could get into Facebook’s app and browse, he could at one time, set up a passcode and block the iPhone. Remember, in order to do this you have to input the same number twice to successfully set up a passcode. The only way to unlock it was restoring after putting it in recovery mode.

Of course he likes games such as Shrek and videos, where he is playing it on his iPad. But when presented with educational apps that really teaches him from a young age about colors, matching pictures and even recognizing animals and sounds, the iPad is the perfect companion to learn and help any kid to improve the development of his/her brain. Its the apps that require interaction that really help children develope, learn faster, and improve overall performance.

We separate these apps from those that they just are stuck there playing with a character killing zombies for whatever reason. Apps that help them recognize colors, animals, sounds and even the family members and parts of the house are the apps that benefit the children.

Yes the iPad is a content device, but it also can create it. Yes the iPad is for playing, but also for learning. There are apps out there that can help you maximize the potential of using it, not only to entertain. It also can help you in ways that are productive for any member of the family. I honestly say I’m not a big fan of giving a two-three year old a DVD player to just see dumb animated movies when they can have all these apps that will get your child moving, thinking, interacting, touching, singing. Why bother getting them netbooks where your child will end up having a Facebook account and just doing dumb things that really don’t help their development at all.

When I think of the generations that come after me, it is a scary thought. Kids and teenagers don’t give any kind of importance to education, to learning and parents are the ones responsible for this. If you teach them at a very young age and get them excited about learning new things, they will become professionals that will get far ahead in life.

Embedded here are some of the videos of the kid observed using his new gift, an iPad. Video is provided and approved by the family. Intro is from before The iOS Post became what it is today.

Here are some example of apps that can really help your child, not only to keep him/her occupied, but also keeping him/her thinking, while stimulating the brain.

  • The Monster at the End of This Book ($3.99)- Lively interactive animation that responds to your child’s touch, narration by lovable old Grover himself, engaging activities that empower readers to decide how and when to move the story forward-—plus encourage kids’ spatial development and listening skills, word highlighting to help build beginning reader skills and playful parent tips from the educational experts at Sesame Street .

  • My Very First App ($1.99) – The app contains 3 levels of game play: Easy (ages 1-3), Medium (ages 2 and up) and Hard (ages 3 and up). These gently increasing stages of difficulty can grow along with your child, and continue to challenge them throughout their early learning years. In Easy mode the screen is divided in half—just like the original books—and your child can swipe the lower and upper halves to find a match. The Medium and Hard modes are based on the game of Memory; players are presented with a set of cards face down and must find a pair by flipping over cards and identifying their matches or their related concepts.

  • Interactive Alphabet ($2.99)- Universal app for iPad/iPhone/iPod: You can use it at home or on the go! Buy it once, take it everywhere; fun original artwork, animations, music, and sound effects engage and capture your child’s curiosity. Memorable and unique interactivity keep your child coming back for more fun and upbeat Original Music — keeps you dancing, not wincing (parent friendly!). Our very own Alphabet/ABC song included!, Baby Mode option (Auto advances cards every 15 seconds), Phonic Sounds, Upper and Lower-case letters

These are just some of the titles but we will provide even more every week to complement all Papa Heroes’ powers.

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