Helpful Tips and Resources For Parents on Managing Technology

We are often asked for help when parents are having challenges with their children in the area of managing technology.  We believe all technology management should start with sit down conversations as a family.  What do we want?  What do we think is reasonable?  What concerns do we have?  We have included some resources below to help with discussions and decisions, but any of these should be used in the context of a two way conversation!

1.  Negative Impact of Technology Near BedTime.

• This is widely studied and reported.  A Google search would get a number of hits pretty quick.  Here are some quick-read resources which have the basic information, along with links to other sites:
• https://www.sleephealthfoundation.org.au/public-information/fact-sheets-a-z/802-technology-sleep.html
• https://sleep.org/articles/ways-technology-affects-sleep/
• https://sleepfoundation.org/ask-the-expert/electronics-the-bedroom
• http://techtimeout.com/technology-sleep/
• http://aspeneducation.crchealth.com/article-teen-sleeping/

2.  Monitoring and Controlling Technology

• This should start with use of parent controls ... particularly setting them for time limits so computer can't be accessed between certain hours.  This involves a sit down conversation with parents and their children as to what would be considered reasonable.  We can help parents set these in the office too.

• Covenant Eyes  http://www.covenanteyes.com/

• Here is an article on the basics of parent controls.  https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-parental-controls

• Looking at History (bear in mind students often know how to use invisible browsing or delete history.  However, a warning sign to parents is if there is not a detailed history ...

• PC Magazine's Review of 2017 best Monitoring software for parents - gives a good overview and comparison of features on offer:  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2346997,00.asp    You can read reviews as well.

• Circle with Disney is one we are trying out.  Users like it because it gives them a great place for conversation starters and they can choose limits on specific software/apps.  Users report the apps are pretty easy to set up.  You can't buy it here, only in the USA.

• Parenting Apps     http://www.screenagersmovie.com/new-page-1/

Family Contracts

Some family rules about where and how technology is used is important.  Lots of families are using contracts.  There are many different types of these.  Here are some samples and resources:

• http://www.robynsonlineworld.com/2014/05/tips-for-creating-family-contracts-for-digital-kids/
• https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/connecting_families/family_media_agreements_k-12.pdf
• https://mediatechparenting.net/contracts-and-agreements/
• http://www.screenagersmovie.com/contracts-1/

Finally, in May we will be holding two screenings of Screenagers.  The plan is to not just watch the movie but have some discussion groups afterwards to help parents think through how they will manage technology in their families.  You may want to attend one of these nights.

As always, please contact any of the DLCs with any queries or concerns.

Eight essential phone apps

There will always be debate about what are essential phone apps. Here is a list of some that the DLCs think are of real value across a range of areas. We deliberately selected apps that were not platform specific.

Leaving Students 2017

Remember to take the content from your Google Drive that you want to keep. You will have access to your school account only until July 31st, 2017.


Google Takeout and Google Transfer

Google Takeout archives all your Google content and download it to your computer in a zip file. This file can be uploaded to another device, hard drive or Google Account.

Google Transfer transfers your Google Mail and Google Drive content to another Google account. In your mail there will be a folder with your old email address. In Google Drive all your transferred files will be placed in a folder labelled with your old Google email address.
Transfer will transfer any file in your drive (that you own) whether it is a Google file (Docs, sheets, slides etc) or not (Word docs, pictures etc.)

Important to remember: Your school Google Drive capacity is unlimited but you personal Google Drive is only 15 Gb. You may have to consider deleting content or buying more storage from Google.

Detailed overview of Google Takeout




If you have any questions, contact the DLCs at dlc@seoulforeign.org

Faculty Leaving SFS 2017

The sessions for leaving faculty took place over the first two Mondays of May. The presentations and links are below.

Remember to return your device to IT when you leave SFS. Be aware that you need to return the device with the power adapter and cord that came with the device (especially the iPad as different models have different volt adapters, newer iPads 12v, older iPads 10v)

Also remember to check in with IT if you bought a phone and a plan through SFS. There may be contracts to pay off.


Three areas were covered.

1. Transferring Pagoda (PowerSchoolLearning) content to a personal (free) PowerSchool Learning account. From here you can transfer five classes and add up to 375 students!

To turn off the music click the forward arrow in the presentation



Link to creating a personal PowerLearning account: https://www.myhaikuclass.com/do/account/login


2. Google Takeout and Google Transfer

Google Takeout archives all your Google content and download it to your computer in a zip file. This file can be uploaded to another device, hard drive or Google Account.

Google Transfer transfers your Google Mail and Google Drive content to another Google account. In your mail there will be a folder with your old email address. In Google Drive all your transferred files will be placed in a folder labelled with your old Google email address.
Transfer will transfer any file in your drive (that you own) whether it is a Google file (Docs, sheets, slides etc) or not (Word docs, pictures etc.)

Detailed overview of Google Takeout





3. Backing Up

Options for taking files from your school laptop and iPad are covered in this presentation below.





If you have any questions, contact the DLCs at dlc@seoulforeign.org

Stop Motion Apps

Stop Motion is a simple way of creating videos without the need to take up time and space with learning lines, getting costumes or space to film.

There are a range of apps available to create stop motion movies. Here are a couple of links showing a range of Stop Motion apps.

• The 10 Handiest Apps for Stop Motion Animation
• Stop Motion apps with ratings

In this post we will look at three applications for creating stop motion as well give you some tips. We chose iMovie because a lot of our students have iMovie on their laptops. Stop Motion Studio and Lapse it are two iOS and Android apps that have been given high ratings.

1. iMovie

• All our students in ES, MS and BS (including a large number of our HS students) have Macs and iMovie is installed
• It is easy to drop the photos from a device into iMovie 
• An iMovie project preferences can be setup to automatically size the images to a set duration (we have experimented with making the photo size 0.2 seconds)
• You are able add voiceover using iMovie

2. Stop Motion Studio

• Available on the ES iPad cart
• Allows you to take the images on your device and places them together immediately
• When taking an image you see a faint impression of the previous image so you can line objects up easily (onion skin).
• Able to adjust the light settings of the camera within the app. (See tip about lighting below)
• You can adjust the frame rate to play the images faster or slower
• Able to record voiceover but not add music
• Able to edit individual images
• You can export the finished project to a number of places including your camera roll or Airdrop it to another device.
• A number of features are Pro features ($4.99 ) such as themes (allowing you to add music) and camera settings.

3. Lapse it

• Allows you to do all the features mentioned for Stop Motion Studio (SMS)
• Same sort of restrictions as Stop Motion Studio
• Found it not as intuitive as SMS
• Picture taking slower - sometimes caught my hand in the picture
• Couldn't find a way to delete individual images

    

Tips for Stop Motion

• The smaller the movements the smoother the motion. Stop Motion can be very time consuming and create a lot of images but the more small adjustments you make the smoother the movements.
• Using Lego pieces, particularly the characters is a quick and easy way to do stop motion
• Make sure that the device is secured on a tripod or frame of some sort. Having students hold the device just doesn't work for stop motion.
• Storyboarding is vital. Just like with other forms of digital storytelling, planning gives direction and saves time. use the storyboard to work out camera angles and closeups etc.
• Keep the setting small and contained. Using a box to contain the foreground and background is a great idea. You want the device to just capture the story and not distractions like people or furniture in the background 

• Lighting is important.  Too little light will make the images grainy but too much light will wash out the photos. Also be aware of shadows created by the device and other objects. Using a desk lamp could be useful.

Replying to a Spammer! James Veitch TED

iPad App of the month: Document 5

Document 5 allows you to save a variety of documents such as PDF, movies, music, youtube clips and word processing documents in one location on your iPad It also allows you to organize those files into folders as well.

The PDFs can also be annotated from within Document 5 as well.

The app also includes the feature to link and sync to cloud based services such as Dropbox and Google Drive giving you access to even more of your content.

It also has a built in browser that allows you search for content on the Internet and then download directly to your iPad. This is useful for downloading Youtube clips to the iPad and being able to view them offline while traveling. (check out the video below)

Another great thing about this app is that it is free. It is worth checking out.

https://readdle.com

https://readdle.com/products/documents