Several months ago I got a computer for my kids. I am techie and I want them to have the skills they need for the future, but protect them from some of the terrible stuff out there. After much research I came across this GREAT firefox extension called Glubble. At the time I liked the idea, but it was still in beta and was difficult to navigate… well, today they released a new version and it is AWESOME! (Note, I am writing from the perspective of father of small children).
Overview from their webpage:
Glubble is a free tool for the Mozilla Firefox Internet browser. It
permits each member of the family to have their own custom environment,
so that when kids use it they only see the very best parts of the
Internet based on selections made by their parents or supplied by
Glubble’s editorial staff.Glubble enhances Firefox to
make sure kids can’t see the whole World Wild Web instead they can only
see family friendly parts of the web, its like their own little world
on the web. We call it their Glubble World.
Cool things for kids:
- Interface – Easy to navigate (even for kids that can’t read)
- Glubble’s – Preapproved content that is awesome – There are a lot of great sites out there, and Glubble has done the hard work in finding it for you.
- Favorites – Kids can easily add small picture thumbnails.
- New Content – If kids want to see something that is not on there, they can request it with a click of a button and a parent/helper will be notified and decide if they want to allow them to see it.
- Personalized Homepage
- Lots of pictures to find things… very nice.
Cool things for Parents/Helpers/Teachers:
- Reporting on where the kids have last been… on any browser. I can be signed in at work and see where my kids are have been last on the home computer. Nice!
- Easily add new webpages.
- Create your own Family Glubbles – I created one for all of our extended family’s blogs.
- A Family Wall – This is a place to post notes to the kids that they will see when they sign in.
- Normal Browser in admin mode.
Educational Uses:
I think it is easy to see how this would be useful in Elementary school. You could create a classroom account and then set up glubbles specific for learning units. It would protect them from other stuff out there too.
What do you think? How could you use this in the classroom?
