BLOG 13 (Internet Safety)
The topic of internet saftey is incredibly important when it comes to our children. With billions of online users (many of them being possible criminals and/or perverts) the internet is a very dangerous place. All it takes is for a child to give an address (or unintentional location hint) to the wrong person and something very bad could happen to your child.
Although there has been some attempts to educate children via online games, these attempts to me are sub-par at best. After playing the AT&T internet safety game for only 5 minutes it became apparent to me that although they have tried to create an educational game, their effort wont account to much in terms of internet safety for children. For starters, the game has no age settings (unlike the GAD GUYPATROL from Alberta child services and microsoft). upon entry into the game, the gamer is presented with a cheap/low budget looking game that only fills 1/3 of your computer screen. The game only has annoying sounds and no vocals from the characters so the gamer is stuck having to read paragraphs of text (HMM that sounds fun). The game started loosing my attention at around 4 min and I pushed my self to go at least 5 min. So, I would say a kid would play about 2-3 minutes before loosing interest. But, 2 minutes is going to be barely long enough for the gamer to even read the instructions since they will probably be 8-12 years old. That is my guess on age. I guess 8-12 because the context and feel of the game makes it feel like it for about 8-9 years old but the gamer is present with lots of reading so I had to increase my age guess to 12 at most. I would suggest anyone over twelve using the game because its a little kids game and they won’t even want to play it since at around 10-12 the kid begins to feel they want something a little bit OLDER :) Although I don’t think having long text is always a bad idea, I do believe that a voice commentary instead would have been a much better idea.
Here are a few screen shots of the long text that I was presented (for my 7 year old, this would take a while to read):
I agree with you on having a lot to read for a young child! Making that game for older kids would be better I think as well!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you being a mom you can never completely control your child on the computer. There is so many ways a child would never even think of that could give important information out to others. I know there are games that the kids can play even on the psp and gaming devices there are messaging apps. I think this is the most important thing that way children know what is okay and what isn't okay. This is extremely important in today's society.
ReplyDeleteSincerely,
Jade Parker