There is a debate about how or if parents should use spyware on their kids' computer to find out what their kids are doing online. This is a debate between parents, but is not a legal debate. Apparently a high school in Philadelphia took this idea to another level.

A Pennsylvania school district is being investigated by the FBI for remotely activating the web cams on the laptops they issued to students. The school district says that they were wanting to track online behavior when the students were supposed to be doing homework. The parents of these students disagree, saying it was a clear privacy violation. It is still unknown how the FBI will find, but I would not at all be surprised to find this a question posed to either the state's or the U.S. Supreme Court.

What do you think? Privacy violation or good intentions communicated poorly?

You may remember the Cingular commercial with the child professing the need to text her "BFF Jill" 50 + times a day. You may even have the child who has the need to text his/her BFF all day long. This is becoming more and more common.

Richard Wood, vice president of Nielsen Mobile, discussing the company's Mobile Kids Insights report, recently said: "Tweens have grown up with mobile phones and expect them to do much more than make a call." Is it just the younger market with higher expectations?

Assuming the "need" of the tween/teen to have a cell phone is a real need, having a phone that just makes calls will not do. The phones need to make a phone call home, be able to text their BFF's, take a picture of him/herself for the social networking site, and the phone must be able to download the latest song for a ring tone to match the personality of anyone calling. Extra bonus points if the phone can hold their entire music collection, surf the Web and play the latest games and get the latest apps. They almost don't even need the cell phone to make calls.

I don't think this is exactly what Alexander Graham Bell had in mind.

As an adult, parent and a kids safety advocate and professional, I "need" the cell phones to be able to make a phone call, have safety features and parental controls built in. Actually, for my own use I also need it to access my email.

What do you expect out of a cell phone? At what age do you think of all the features that are now available are "needed"?

It's no secret that many schools block social networking sites. What is a mystery to most educators is how to block sites from teens that they shouldn't be able to get to and how to allow sites that they should be able to get to easily and economically.

This article from YourSphere talks about this very problem, but poses a different solution. Instead of blocking them - use them as tools in teaching. This is a solution that I've suggested before - and I still believe in it.

When I hear from teachers, they say that if they can't get to a web site they need to use for teaching, there is always a student on hand who can help them get there. This is suggesting that we are preventing access to these sites for the wrong group. Why wouldn't we want to harness the good things social networks have to offer and include them in the curriculum, instead of pretending they are these dark caves that should be avoided?

What do you think about including social networking in the classroom?

We've talked about Twitter on this blog and it is mentioned with some regularity in the traditional media. But what IS it?

The answer (in exactly 140 characters) is:
Twitter is a micro-blogging site that is asking you to share what you are doing right now with your friends and the world in 140 characters.

Why? This video from Common Craft answers this question:

I remember when Adam Walsh was abducted. I felt the fear of all the parents around me and it really made an impression. What made an even bigger impression on me is how his father, John Walsh, reacted. He took every parent's worst fear and turned it into an organization to help all the parents whose worst fears have been realized. He paved the path to legislative changes to help missing children and his non-profit merged with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where he is still on the board of directors.

While the Walsh family has my highest respect, the worst part about his story is that the services are needed. I hope that you will never have a need for these services. If I am wishing for things, I would wish that there was not a need for their services. Since there is a need – I am proud that AOL has been partnering with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in many ways for more than 10 years.

Two services available on AOL that can help locate missing kids are:

Alerts: You can sign up to be alerted when an AMBER Alert is sent in the zip code of your choosing. These alerts notify you of a missing child in the area, so you can watch for them. As you know, the missing piece of information can come from anywhere. Alerts can come via e-mail, text message to your cell phone or via Instant Message.

Updated Notifications: You can include a widget for local missing children in your area by going to your local MapQuest page. If you can provide any information about any missing child, you can call the toll-free number 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).

The National Center's web site is full of information about protecting kids. I encourage you to check it out.

Common Sense Media recently posted a great article citing Norton's top 100 searches done by kids.

Of the top 100, I was not at all surprised by what was searched, but I have to admit that I was quite surprised how highly ranked some of the search terms were - especially 'sex' and 'porn'.

There are things you can do to help mitigate your child getting to search results that are not age appropriate. The article mentions several and AOL Parental Controls can also help.

This article made me think. Thankfully, my daughter isn't old enough for the computer, but I am not sure how I would react if I discovered she was searching on these terms. Now that you read their article - what (if anything) will you change about your online habits at home?

I read on InfoWorld that there may be a new hacking target for 2010.

Viruses are spread through programs and platforms that are most commonly used because of the law of numbers. Cybercriminals know that the more chances you have to spread the virus, the higher the impact it will have. So they attack things that "everyone" uses. This is a big reason why Windows PC's have a higher rate of viruses over the Mac. Does this mean you should toss your PC? Not at all! It does mean that we should take everything said online with an extra grain of salt.

McAfee, a popular antivirus software company, said: "Cybercriminals have long picked on Microsoft products due to their popularity. In 2010, we anticipate Adobe software, especially Acrobat Reader and Flash, will take the top spot." in its report (PDF).

Many of the apps and games found on social networking sites are created using Flash. The popularity of those apps and games combined with the popularity of social networking sites makes it a perfect place to target, if you were a hacker.

How can you protect yourself?

• -- Make sure your virus software is up to date. Most software that is available has regular updates available from the company's website. All of the virus protection software that I am familiar with has an option to automatically update the software every time there is an update. I like this option - takes out an extra step for me to do. If you think you may have downloaded a virus, run a virus scan.
• -- Don't trust everything you read online - even if it looks like it is from your friend. If you get a random request from a friend asking to do something unusual on your profile (or email, or anywhere else), question your friend. It is possible your friend's profile was compromised and the hacker sent the request (in hopes you will help further disburse the virus they are spreading)
• -- Report things that are viruses or you think might be a virus. Most social networking sites have a way to report violations. The companies normally work to get the viruses added to virus databases which, in turn, protect future people from that virus.
• -- Many companies offer similar things, but AOL does have a good product suite for safety and security, including free parental controls, free spam control, and free to paying members and discounted to everyone else, there is McAffee security suite.

What are some other tips you have for preventing a virus on your computer?

It's hard to believe that the past 10 years have flown by so quickly.

When looking at the Internet's road from 2000 to 2010, it is amazing how much has changed. In 2000...

• -- Google existed (it started in 1996), but was hardly a verb in the American lexicon.
• -- If you wanted to share your home videos, YouTube wasn't an option until 2005.
• -- Social Networking was happening via profiles, online chat rooms and message boards, but "Social Networking" didn't happen until the middle of the decade. Now people have multiple social networking sites.
• -- In 2000, media was defined as the newspapers, broadcast news and other forms of "news" we always knew. During this decade there was a new media created, Blogs. There are several blogs that are considered equals to the traditional media. There is even a woman named 26th most influential woman in media, who got there by blogging. That's it. Blogging. According to Wikipedia, as of 2007 there were 112,000,000 blogs.
• -- Speaking of Wikipedia - it didn't exist until 2001. It is a free encyclopedia that is created by anyone who wants to contribute to it. Because anyone can contribute or edit any article, it is hard to use it as a soul source of information - but it is generally a good place to start. In my circle of friends it is considered enough of a source to settle an argument.

With the good comes the bad. Before 2000, there was never a report of cyberbullying nor sexting. These are relatively new terms that brought online worlds crashing into our "offline" lives. We, as parents, have learned that our children don't see the distinct difference between online and offline like we do. This has changed the focus of parents slightly. Luckily the basics of parenting are still true.

Everything Internet related changed so quickly in this decade that I wonder what the world will be like in another 10 years. Do you have any predictions?

A mom that I know (who will remain anonymous) is one whom I often think of when I am writing this blog. She is a mom of three great kids - an 8-year-old, 10-year-old and a 14-year-old. She uses email, but only under duress. She uses the Internet for research about several things, but only reads articles - never posts anything or uploads pictures because she feels like it will be too hard or she will sound silly. Her kids all want to get online and do various age appropriate things. I am the one who gets a call with a question how to protect the kids from the "bad things". She is pretty savvy with the parental controls on other gadgets like the TV and game systems, but feels intimidated by the same things online. She is also my source for questions about my daughter, so we trade information.

Then, at the FOSI conference, I heard this startling figure: of the top 100 apps on the iPhone, 35% are geared toward toddlers and preschoolers, and 12% to elementary aged kids. I'm assuming they were purchased by the parents who are giving their kids a game to play with while they at the store, on a plane, waiting at the doctor's office, etc.. The person doing this seems like the polar opposite of the mom I first described. Are these parents this tech savvy to use the all of these gadgets and gizmos? Or are they the same parents, but have discovered a way to make the Internet part of their everyday world?

A not so scientific survey I heard about at the conference said that parents who don't use parental controls on their computer don't because they:
- don't feel they need to because the child knows more about computers than they do
- feel "that wouldn't happen to my child" when talking about being exposed to mature content
- are intimidated by the computer

I have a theory that the same parents that use technology to their advantage are the same parents who say they "can't"... they just don't realize they already are tech savvy.

What technology do you use in your life?

This holiday season, there are many products hoping to catch the attention of the kids. If the kids love and desire the new gadgets and gizmos, they are sure to appear on wish lists. It is not all that surprising to see that computer manufacturers have come up with lower cost laptops geared directly at kids. This article is not intended to be a review of any of the computers, as I have not played with any of them. Instead, I am amazed at what technology is available for kids.

Many of the children's laptops don't connect to the Internet, like this one from Barbie. It is designed with girls in mind, having the Barbie packaging, but it is similar to a real laptop in how it works, regarding games and how you play them.

This one from VTech is more gender neutral. It is more "laptop like" in that it has educational games preloaded and Mom or Dad can help download new games from the Internet when your child is ready for them.

Even babies and toddlers have them. My daughter (who is not quite a year old) got a toy laptop as a gift. It just looks like a laptop, and has numbers, letters and colors. If children have toys like this at such a young age, is it any wonder that they want to get on the real computer at younger and younger ages?

What are your thoughts about computers being introduced to kids at such a young age?

A common question parents with kids who are just gaining interest in going online is HOW to parent an online child. The answer really is simple. You parent your child online, the same way you do offline. You help them learn the new tool (the computer and Internet), use tools to protect them (parental controls from your computer or other free software), and work with them and monitor them as they learn.

Here are a few good web sites to start for kids who are probably just asking about getting online. Your child may already know a few that he/she wants to see:

- KOL - Yep, this is the AOL site for kids. It has celeb news, games, sports and style information. You can also sign your child up for an email address that is designed for kids. Because it is an AOL site, I will let you be the judge on how good it is.
- Nick.com - This site is from Nickelodeon and, as you might expect, it is filled with Nickelodeon characters. Everyone from Sponge Bob and iCarly to Rugrats and the Naked Brothers are represented with their own games and videos. If you like Nickelodeon channel, chances are you will like the site.
- Disney.com - Disney cannot be outdone for creativity, in my opinion. The games and videos are represented, all with the Disney characters, but there are a lot more interactive things to do on this site. My personal favorite is under the "create" tab, you can create mash ups.
- National Geographic for Kids - The fun way to learn and the best place for animal pictures.
- NASA - If you have a space nut in your house, this is a great site NASA made for kids.

This is a very short list of the many offerings for kids online. A good place to start looking for content for your kids is from their favorite activities, characters and toys. Do a search for the their favorite things and see what's out there. I would recommend you doing this search for the younger kids.

It is always a good idea to use tools like parental controls in conjunction with your help, especially when they start surfing on their own, but there is no tool that will parent better than you.

What are some of your young child's favorite web sites?

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act requires prior parental permission before a company can collect any personally identifiable information online about a child 12-years-old or younger.

The law dictates what counts as "personally identifiable" and companies work within this law. There is a recent controversy about the collection of children's chat discussions through parental control software. I will note that not all parental control software collects this information. For example, AOL's Parental Controls does not track what a child says, only where they go and with whom they communicate with via AOL mail and AIM.

Assuming the risk of exposing personally identifiable information is gone, what are your thoughts about parental controls collecting information from chat to sell to advertisers?

The cell phone is the source of debate in many households. When is the right time to get a cell phone for your child/tween/teen?

One concern for parents is the potential of having very high cell phone bills; another is the risk of losing the phone. Once those are resolved in the minds of parents, there is the risk of behavior on the cell phone.

There are solutions to many of these problems, allowing for a little more peace of mind for parents.

AT&T offers a content blocker and a purchase blocker.

T-Mobile allows parents to set limits for messages, minutes and downloads. Once a limit is reached, they are no longer allowed to use the phone (except for those on the "always allow" list – ensuring parents can always be in contact).

Sprint has parental controls that include limited web access (restricting sites with mature content), blocking two way text messages, content purchase block, restricting of voice calls by phone number, turn on or off the ability to use the in-phone camera, and for an additional fee, you can use Sprint Family Locator, which locates the phone by GPS.

Verizon's parental controls are called "usage controls" and also offer usage allowances, time restrictions and blocked numbers. They also have trusted numbers, which allow for usage even after usage has been exceeded or it is out of time restrictions. They also break down the family locator fee separately from the parental controls. They do have a separate content filter for children, young teens and young adults that has no fee.

If your carrier doesn't have what you need, you can also check out companies who say their products will work with any carrier. Mobile Nanny, for example allows a parent to control how and when a cell phone is used. The company boasts about features blocking texting and call features by phone number, time restrictions, Internet or app blocking and even content monitoring. All this does come with a fee, but it may suit you better than alternatives.

These solutions offered by companies may put some minds at ease. There are still other questions about lost phones, etiquette regarding when to use the phone, or even if it is appropriate for your child or teen to have a phone.

When do you think is a good time to get a child a cell phone? What does it depend on?

Later this week, if you are registered as an adult on your Xbox LIVE, you will be able to boast about your latest high score via Facebook or Twitter straight from the gaming system. My prediction is that this feature will be welcomed by Xbox gamers.

For those who are under 18, you will have to wait for Microsoft to finalize the parental controls to allow you to do the same. They say it will be a few weeks.

The Xbox (and many other gaming systems) have had the ability to connect to the Internet for a while. It now seems the online world and offline world are blurring that much more. What do you think about this functionality?

Getting new technology in your life generally means an "upgrade" from what you had before. If you get a new cell phone, it is probably going to come with a camera (whether or not you want one). Recently I had to replace my laptop and realized that in order to get the features I wanted, I had to get one with a web cam built in.

When I read this article saying that 1/3 of students in the UK aged 12 – 15 years old have a web cam in their bedrooms – this made sense to me. Assuming the technology is basically the same in the US vs. the UK, parents are getting their school aged students a laptop to do their homework and it is very likely going to include a web cam.

I am a long time supporter of having the computer in a common area of the home, not in a bedroom where the door can be closed. Admittedly, most teens are not going to do anything too terrible or talk to people they shouldn't using a web cam, but even fewer will if they have to do it with parents or siblings around (even if the family is just in sight and not close to the computer).

Now that our family has this new web cam, we got one for Grandma and Grandpa too. Every couple of weeks they can see their grandchild as she is growing up. I guess this forced technology isn't all bad – just unplanned.