I received the following pertinent question today from my parent Google group: 


Good Morning - what if anything can you tell me about the safety and security of the iPod touch?  Do you know if the access to the internet is completed unprotected, unable to put parental controls on?  And are there any other tracking or possible predatory threats?  I appreciate any information you could provide. 

Thanks so much for the great question.  There are inherent dangers whenever a child has unrestricted access to the Internet in any form, and the iPod touch is basically a handheld computer. There is software you can install that will monitor your child's activity on his cell phone... I am not sure if iPod security would be any different. 

I love this website for cell phone and iPhone monitoring software: 
http://www.pcsndreams.com/Pages/Sexting_Statistics.html 

According to what I found, there really are not too many parental controls for the iPod touch or iPhone yet.


You can go to Settings > Restrictions, then enter a passcode and set restrictions to access: 

• iPod songs with explicit lyrics 
  
• Safari 
  
• YouTube 
  
• iTunes 
  
• Installing Apps 
  
• Camera 
  

Unfortunately, except for the explicit iPod settings, these are strict restrictions to the use of these applications and no filtering. For example, restricting Safari means that you can't use the web browser at all, which removes many of the more useful features of the iPhone or Internet-enabled iPod Touch. 

The bottom line is that the iPod Touch is still a good choice for kids to listen to music, play games and use other applications.  However, until there are better parental controls, it might be safer to set the restrictions and leave its WiFi Internet connection off.   (Don't give your kids the password to your home WiFi network.   If you don't have a password, get one.)

I will create a movie for my Google Group Parents showing how to disable many features on the iPhone.  If you use the iPod Touch, the process will be very similar -  the only difference is that you need Wifi to text or send/receive media.

Photo image:  http://www.hightech-edge.com/turn-ipod-touch-into-iphone-use-voip/4591/

One of the reasons why I have not blogged in so long is because I have been engaging in email lessons with my students’ parents.

It never occurred to me to use this correspondance as the fodder for blog posts. All this time I have felt like an epic blogging failure because I had not picked it back up after the birth of my daughter. But I have been blogging this whole time, just to a private audience.

My efforts have been to teach my parents augmented Cyber Safety lessons while their children are learning the same subject. I feel this two pronged teaching approach is the best way to keep my students safe.  Before long I realized that I have enough information for an entire website dedicated Parents

Below is today’s letter:

Good Morning Parents,

I had this in my Twitter feed this morning and I wanted to forward it to you as well.

As a parent I am definitely guilty of being on my phone while sitting on the couch with my kids, I am surprised that I have not come across social media parenting lessons before.

In an age where many of us are connected all the time, we begin to lose touch with the subtleties of face to face human contact. I noticed this myself while my son and I are having ‘our’ time after I put my daughter to bed. It is the only time of the day when it is just me and my son, and I am ashamed to say that I found myself often plugged into my phone rather than enjoying that moment of cuddling with my boy.

‘Social Media’ (being the tools we use like Facebook, Flickr, Youtube) have made all of us use ‘Social Networks’ (the people using the tool) to stay plugged in. Because of being plugged in citizen journalismhas taken off, like the example below.

It is rumored that Twitter was used to first to announce attack on Bin
Laden and then later his subsequent death. That example just goes to
show how social media and citizen journalism is changing our world.

We are living in amazing times, being “plugged in” is a natural part of our lives, but that makes it ever more in important to prioritize times to be “unplugged” with our children. Our kids will learn from our behavior more than anything we say.  I need to remember this the next time my son is asking for my attention when I am mid-text. Is it more important for me to answer that text? Or put the phone down and look into his big blue eyes.  And they are BIG blue eyes.