MyPage – Easy to Make Kids’ Websites
Teenagers study how to design websites at school, but younger children also want to have their own sites. With MyPage they can make their own website easily, share it with friends and have a URL with their nickname forming part of it. This is not just fun, it’s also a simple introduction to the basics of website design – something children need to learn.
The pages are fun and colourful and with pre-teen pictures of children so the target age is clear. Childen register with their parents’ permission and email address an get their own URL which starts with mypage.it/ and then has their chosen nickname. To make it easy for children to create a fun site there are toys and games called Kidgets and wallpaper to make the sites attractive. Extra activities include videos and colouring in, and children learn to add these to their pages and move them around. All useful computer skills.
Perhaps most important of all children can communicate with their friends, view each other’s sites and also exchange the activities they have included on their own. The ability to communicate with friends on the internet is one of the things that attracts children to interactive online games, and this is a safe way to appeal to that wish while also helping them learn real computer skills.
GameClassroom – Educational Games for Children
This is a fun site that combines enjoyable games with learning that fits in with schools for the years from nursery to year/grade six. It’s designed with the attractive colours and images that would appeal to children and it looks like a standard computer games site. Each game is aimed at helping with skills – particularly English language and maths. The games include some brain-training type intelligence activities, needing hand and eye co-ordination. Others are more specifically for the maths and English classes taught in schools.
Racing cars are used to teach fractions, ability with numbers and patterns comes into stacking and other games needing calculations. Basics, such as months of the year for nursery-age children, lead up to more complex games including story starting techniques and prompts to get children writing. Along with the games there’s a homework help section with more detailed information and guidance on the subjects children will be studying for these important 7 years. Parents have been willing to pay for this kind of series on CD so the website should be a useful and entertaining resource, and something parents can do with their children to help them understand their studies.
Blabbelon – High Quality Voice Communication Online
The moment I saw a description of Blabbelon I could see it was a service I’ve been looking for, so it should prove useful to others. Blabbelon allows users to talk to others, either individually or as a group, no matter what they’re doing on the internet at that time. They might be involved in a virtual world game or conducting professional business, or perhaps using the internet for a distance learning course and workshop.
Isn’t that just like Skype, you might ask. Well, in a lot of ways it is, but one major difference is that you don’t have to download software and adjust the settings to get it started. With Blabbelon you could quickly direct people to the website where they can log in with their email address to receive a password, and you can start the communication almost immediately.
Once you’ve registered you can invite your contacts by email to join Blabbelon and add them to any ‘Blabs’ you want to set up. Afterwards you can also add contacts using their Blabbelon name. To talk to them you use a hot key, the default is the right Control key but you can change it, or you click on a Talk button with your mouse. Discussion can continue while you browse other websites or carry on with your game, and if you don’t want to join in by talking you can also use text. One of the main difficulties with voice communication online is that everybody talks at once, or two people talk over each other. With Blabbelon you can only talk while you hold the button, and as you release it another person takes a turn.
Although I couldn’t test it, as I need to add contacts first, I can see it will prove useful to me based on the website statements. Apart from the ease of getting started, which I really need when I suddenly want to have a group discussion for distance learning workshops, I would value the push-button approach to stop people talking at the same time. Blabbelon also promises high quality sound, which would be invaluable when I need to film a meeting or performance. The high-definition sound quality uses technology called Silk created by Skype. The website describes SILK as a ‘super wideband audio codec that delivers optimized voice clarity while minimizing internet bandwidth needs.’ While people like me would use this for a small group, it could also be used for hundreds or even thousands simultaneously, according to Blabbelon. Future plans include Blabbelon for the iphone and other mobile/cellphones.
FactorGaming – Customized Gaming Laptops
Today’s games demand high performance machines. Traditionally desktops have been the driving force behind the success of games but now the shift is starting towards laptops. Choosing a right gaming laptop is difficult though. That is where factorgaming.com comes in.
FactorGaming.com uses templates to give the user an idea of the bare minimum machine. The users are then free to add customizations to suit their particular taste. Things like processor, RAM, hard disk, operating system and accessories like camera, battery, carrying case etc can be added on the fly and the price quoted. You can then place the order of your dream machine and it will be delivered within 10 days.
The website accepts Credit Cards, PayPal eChecks, Money Orders, Personal Checks, and Wire Transfers.
Happy gaming everyone.
Socially!