Here’s an interesting plug-in for the Firefox browser called Glubble When installed, Glubble 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 trusted family brands.
I know there are all sorts of views about whether or not it is appropriate to block websites etc, but as software of this nature goes, Glubble is not bad. It took me just a few minutes to install and set up with several accounts. Glubble is designed for you to easily add or subtract sites from your child’s Glubble World which means that you tailor your child’s on line experience to be the way you want it, and the Glubble Altered Search makes Google and Yahoo show results from childrens trusted Glubbleworld instead of the world wide web. Installing Glubble doesn’t alter your own web browsing experience – the Glubble screen appears when you launch Firefox, and once you log on your normal view of Firefox appears.
Not only is installation easy, but you can set the look and feel of Glubble to suit the reading ability of your child – there’s even a pre-reading option in the set-up, but I haven’t tried that yet. I’d be interested to hear from others who have tried it out.
Glubble’s great. We’ve been using it for perhaps a month now, and I’m really enjoying the way that we are now able to allow the kids (3, 6, 8) access to the web.
It’s also great that you can include other family members within your Glubble, so that a wider range of parties can be involved in the selection & screening of appropriate sites.
We’ve installed our Glubble on the grandparent’s computer so that the kids can also safely surf when they are visiting their grandparents.
Glubble comes pre-set with a range of websites that are kid-friendly. It would be useful if they contained more educational/reference-type sites, but that’s probably my only issue.
Looks good Derek- I will have a play. Of course for us lucky NZ teachers the MOE have funded Watchdog to filter the internet, which I find very useful- and free too!
http://www.watchdog.net.nz/
Hey – I had a buch of 20 teachers from the Wairarapa visit our school today to look at our ICT integration and very few of them knew about the artrage $1 licence deal- maybe you could publicise that? I have posted on my blog about it.