Behind the scenes of ZuiPicks
As Office Manager, I have many responsibilities here at Kidzui, and I can say without a doubt that my favorite is the role I play in our featured ZuiPicks. If you don’t know, ZuiPicks, or simply ZP, is a themed category on the KidZui browser’s main page. Every bit of the content in ZuiPicks is changed every Tuesday.
Each week a different theme is selected, and I search and find all the best stuff on that subject. ZuiPicks kicked off with Funniest Videos, a compilation of the highest rated and “funniest” videos in KidZui. Since then, ZuiPicks has run the gamut from Mythical Creatures, through Cooking Fun, to all things Dance. Picking each week’s theme is fairly easy. Sometimes it ties to something in pop-culture, like the Jonas Brothers 3D movie opening. Sometimes ZuiPicks is based on a holiday. A sporting event like the Super Bowl could be a week’s theme, or even a season. Or sometimes we simply pick something we think will be interesting and fun for kids to explore! One popular ZP was Virtual Communities. This was a selection of both trendy children’s sites like WebKinz or PopTropica, and also many lesser known but equally entertaining sites. All were based on “Virtual Worlds” where characters are created and can interact safely with others. The video portion of this was especially interesting. It included many impressive homemade “music videos” by children and tweens themselves, setting their own characters’ actions to popular music.
Since ZuiPick’s beginning, we have had over twenty different themes. Before I discuss a little bit about those, I would like to share a personal experience about my favorite topic to date, Pirates. The Pirate theme was especially fun for me, as I have learned the hard way how tough it is to find appropriate pirate content. A few years ago, I was working as a nanny. Emmet, the five year old under my care, was completely obsessed with all things pirate. Emmet was specifically into Captain Jack Sparrow and the whole Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, even though he was still too young to watch the movie. Whenever he would be given computer time, all Emmet would want to do was search YouTube for pirate videos. This meant, of course, that I would have to sit right next to him and make sure he only saw what was appropriate for a kindergartner. Even then it was difficult, and the whole time I sat there terrified that any seemingly innocent video could turn inappropriate, and poor Emmet could be scarred for life. Pirates are notorious for using curse words and having bad behavior. Manners? No way! And Captain Jack had some pretty scary enemies. That Davy Jones with the squid face would give even me nightmares! Sword fight after sword fight after sword fight… I was worried about the effect all that violence would have on Emmett, who already liked to stage his own battles with empty paper towel rolls. So when given the opportunity to create a Pirates ZuiPicks, I knew exactly what I wanted it to be. I would fill it with Black Beard, Red Beard, and even blue Beard. Scurvy Dogs, Scallywags, peg-legs and parrots. And of course, Captain Jack Sparrow himself. All of the fun of pirates without the objectable material. I thought of Emmet and other pirate-obsessed children like himself. Now they could search websites about maps marked with an “X” and finding buried treasure. They could watch silly pirates singing silly songs, and of course, look at picture after picture of the Black Pearl and its crew freely and safely. I thought of other nannies, as well as babysitters, mothers, fathers, and grandparents, and thought of freeing them from being Personal Pirate-YouTube Filters, and this made me very, very proud to be a part of KidZui.
And while I may have loved Pirates for personal reasons, every ZuiPick has been quite interesting to create. Even I have become more knowledgeable and interested in many different topics we have featured. We know that not all children are going to like the same subject, but we hope to show them different subjects that they may not have known they had an interest in before. We also hope that all of them find a favorite ZuiPicks at some point.
A few more examples of what we have featured include the exciting and adventure-filled Famous Heroes and Villains! There were also the educational Space Exploration and Extreme Weather ZuiPicks. Don’t forget the icky, and slimy Yucky Science! For the animal lovers out there, we have featured sea life in Under the Sea as well as the dangerous and wild Safari Animals. Best of all, each weekly theme adds more and more to discover in KidZui itself.
After the featured theme is changed for the week, we do not delete the old content. Instead, it is placed into an existing or new category created for it. The “Funniest Videos” ZP mentioned? We now have a Funniest Videos category. Into Miley Cyrus? All Miley’s websites, pictures, and videos from our most popular ZuiPicks yet can be found in multiple categories. These include the Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana, and even New TV & Cartoon categories. Another favorite of mine is all about our canine friends. Every bit of content from our cute and cuddly Man’s Best Friend can now be found in our Dogs category.
After learning about our past and present ZuiPicks, you may be wondering what we have coming up. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you. Part of what makes ZP so exciting is that you won’t know what it is going to feature until it changes! If you would like, you and your children could try and guess what we might come up with, and log in to KZ every Tuesday to see what’s new.
Ultimately, ZuiPicks is an interesting and exciting addition to everything you love about KidZui. I hope your children enjoy it as much as I enjoy putting it together. And if any of you have had an experience like I did with Emmett and the pirates, please let us know what the subject in question was. Feel free to leave us comments on what you might want to see featured. Looking forward to reading your ideas!
Rebecca is KidZui’s Office Manager.
Free Entertainment for Kids on Spring Break “Stay-cation”
In these tough times, a lot of families are opting for Spring Break “stay-cations” instead of big holiday trips. But if you’re staying home, it can be hard to keep the kids entertained and out of trouble. Many parents are naturally cautious about letting their kids loose on the Internet, but there is a lot of good, free, appropriate content available online – if you know where to look. Here’s a list of 10 web sites to surf on KidZui that can help your kids beat Spring Break boredom if they’re staying home.
Best Set-and-Forget Web Environment for Kids
· KidZui – KidZui is actually not a Web site at all – it’s the Internet made just for kids. It gives kids access to millions of Web sites (including all of the below), YouTube videos, games and photos that have been vetted by a team of parents and teachers. Kids love the cute little avatars they can create and the safe social networking features, and parents love the fact that there’s no chance of enquiring minds stumbling across anything inappropriate.
Best Web Sites for Kids
· Club Penguin – A snow-covered virtual world where children play games and interact with friends in the guise of colorful penguin avatars.
· Lego.com – Ideal for the Lego fan, your child can watch Lego comics and movies, play games and construct their own Web page to show off their creativity.
· Nick.com – Your child can pledge to save the world, play games, check out the latest news on SpongeBob or create a virtual life on Nicktropolis.
· PBSKids.com – With games themed around Sesame Street, Clifford, Curious George, Arthur, Barney and other kid classics, your kids will have fun “interacting” with their favorite characters.
· Poptropica – This virtual online world lets kids create a character, play games, compete with other kids and travel between islands on a blimp to explore new areas.
Best Online Game Sites for Kids
· Cartoon Network Games – With more than 200 games featuring favorite cartoon characters, your kids can hunt monsters with Scooby-Doo, play Ninja Survival or follow the Path of a Jedi.
· Funbrain – Part of the Family Education Network, the site provides educational activities for parents and teachers, as well as interactive games to help your kids with math and reading.
· Funschool – This site, provided by Kaboose, is designed for elementary-age kids and offers free educational games as well as printable activities, coloring sheets and craft projects that will help your kids learn while having fun.
· Hot Wheels Games – For car fans, Hot Wheels has dozens of vehicle-related games that let kids drive through mazes, race friends and solve puzzles.
KidZui’s Cliff Boro believes that parents needn’t be afraid of letting their kids use the Internet. “The Internet is a wonderful tool that, when used appropriately, provides endless hours of free entertainment for the whole family,” he says. “And more than that, it’s a great way for kids to learn and discover new things without even realizing it!” And what parent wouldn’t approve of that?
Kids’ Trends
At KidZui, it is my job to know simply everything kids are into. Little kids are easy. They’re intrigued by anything to do with animals, animation, and absolutely adore songs that make them laugh. Where it becomes tricky is the tween set. “Tweens” refer to the age group of 8 to 12. These kids are stuck between wanting to be children and wanting to be teens; a pretty complex dilemma! Tweens have, in recent years, become a huge focal group to marketers and creators of multimedia. A whole new world of television, movies, music and clothing has emerged just for them.
An obvious trend over the past few months (or even past few years if you’re familiar with it), have been the Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Jumping off from the success of the Harry Potter series based on wizardry, Twilight has introduced a whole new world of vampires, werewolves and young love. The Twilight series has been marketed to almost everyone, from tweens to adults, and the following it has acquired is huge. The series became so popular that Summit Entertainment bought the rights to the books and made a movie – released last year. This pushed the books into the mainstream even more making almost everyone aware of it, even quite possibly your child. While the PG-13 rated movie doesn’t seem like it would be appropriate or interesting for KidZui’s 3 to 12 target audience, the mania surrounding it has probably made your child very curious about all the buzz. Rest assured, KidZui does have all the awesome Twilight content your kids are looking for, plus all the content meets KidZui’s strict editorial guidelines; this should be enough to satiate your child’s Twilight appetite without exposing too much! The sequel to Twilight, New Moon, will release later this year on November 20th.
Another very popular trend and top web-destination of KidZui users is WebKinz. Kids love being able to interact in virtual worlds and adopt virtual pets. However, a certain level of know-how is required in being involved in these virtual worlds. Kids have to know how to use a mouse and be able to type and spell on a keyboard to get the full experience. Unfortunately, this seems to leave out the younger kids who just aren’t there yet. But there is good news for our youngsters coming this Spring! The online phenomenon, WebKinz, is currently developing an online experience made specifically for these young children (3-6 year olds) who are still perfecting their motor-skills and are just learning about computers and how to use them independently. Howard Ganz, president of Ganz, said, “Webkinz Jr. is a world for younger children to discover, where learning and daily activities can be chosen by parents to meet their child’s needs.” (http://www.giftsanddec.com/article/CA6626603.html). WebKinzJr.com is already included in KidZui and awaiting the much anticipated launch in late Spring, so keep an eye out for it!
Painting with the Computer
Before coming aboard as a KidZui art director, I’d spent years as a freelance illustrator – doing artwork for advertisers and magazine articles – and then as an illustrator for animated educational CD-ROM games for school children as well as online computer games. Working for KidZui was different in that most of the artwork involved what’s referred to as UI, for User Interface, design. This means designing what KidZui will look and feel like – the buttons, the windows, the tabs, etc. – and how they all work together. I also got to design what the Zui characters looked like and to create much of the fun clothes, hairstyles and doodads that go with them.
But while all this is fun, my passion is still illustrating… painting pictures that tell stories or create moods. So imagine my delight when KidZui decided that kids could customize their KidZui browsers with different backgrounds (See latest backgrounds below.) “We’ll need some fun background illustrations. LOTS of them!” they told me. “Of what?” I asked. “Anything kids would be interested in. Everything kids would be interested in. Colorful designs, fun places, sports, activities, animals, anything!”
For an illustrator who’s always been a little boy at heart, nothing could be more fun. Of course, that left only one problem. You see, I’ve never been a little girl, and KidZui is for boys and girls. So I’ve been eternally grateful to the ladies of KidZui for their endless suggestions and feedback on what appeals to the imaginations of both little girls and boys. Together we created a long list of themes and topics as idea starters. Plus we’re always looking ahead to special occasions like holidays and events.
My ideas come from all over… comic books, movies, paintings, anything. I’ll start a new background by wondering through my list, and inevitably something will smack me upside the head with a mental image. Once I’ve sketched out a composition, I’ll surf through the Internet looking for reference materials. Want to know what, oh let’s say, a rock concert stage looks like? Or a baseball player at bat? Or a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Or a pirate ship? There’s bound to be lots of images to help you start sketching. From there, it’s the years of experience and practice that take over. I work at my computer, using an electronic stylus and drawing tablet to draw, and then “paint”, directly to the screen, so what used to take me a few weeks now takes a few days. And unlike painting, I can move things around or change their colors with ease. It’s really quite amazing.
And the list of ideas is very long, so watch for new background art appearing for years to come.
Dan Owen Jones
Art Director
Take a look at Dan’s latest work! Click on any of the images to enlarge them. KidZui members can now choose from any of these backgrounds to customize their KidZui experience.
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- KidZui Martial Art
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- Girls Rock Band
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- The KidZui land of dinosaurs
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- The KidZui Unicorn
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- KidZui Underwater World
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- Attention KidZui Snowboarders!
Text & Chat Lingo – Stay Informed
The popularity of instant messaging and texting is spreading like wildflower. So how do you protect your kids from the new dangers of this ever-growing communication and lingo? Well, you’re half way there – KidZui protects your computer and kids with no instant messaging, but what about texting on cell phones?
Kids today are using abbreviated language to text because mom and dad are “DAR” (dumb as rocks) who make-up “TSR” (totally stupid rules). “Texting is the #2 use of cell-phones after checking the time,” according to Common Sense Media. Here at KidZui we don’t have a solution (not yet anyway) for kids’ texting inappropriate messages or adults sending them to kids, however we’ve compiled a list of abbreviated lingo and definitions to keep you informed.
| <3: Heart | M4C: Meet for Coffee |
| 143: I love you | MINRL: Meet in real life |
| 9: Parent is watching | NAZ: Name, Address, Zip |
| ADR: Address | OIC: Oh, I see |
| A/S/L: Age, Sex, Location | P911: Parent Alert |
| BRB: Be right back | PA: Parent Alert |
| BYOB: Bring your own beer | PAL: Parents are listening |
| CICYHW: Can I copy your homework? | PLOS: Parents looking over shoulder |
| EMA: Email | PRW: parents are watching |
| F2F: Face to face | Pron: Porn |
| FWB: Friends with benefits | QT: Cutie |
| GAB: Getting a beer | RU/18: Are you over 18? |
| KPC: Keep parents clueless | SYS: See you soon |
| LU: Love you | TAW: Teachers are watching |
| XTC: ecstasy |
Teens learn social and technical skills through digital media
A new study from the MacArthur foundation on Living and learning with new media has fascinating conclusions:
- Most youth use online networks to extend the friend-ships that they navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religious organizations, sports, and other local activities
- Online groups enable youth to connect to peers who share specialized and niche interests of various
kinds - New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom.
- Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth are picking up basic social and technical skills they need to fully participate in contemporary society.
The basic premise that motivated the creation of KidZui is that our children need the freedom to explore their interest online and the ability to interact with their friends online to fully function in contemporary society. We believe that the discoveries in the MacArthur study apply to children under 13.
Contemporary society has changed dramatically from the society that parents grew up in. Society continues to change at a very rapid rate. Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, demonstrates this well in their video titled Shift Happens.
In order to succeed in contemporary society children must have access to modern tools and the independence to explore online.
The MacArthur study researchers categorized teen engagement as either friendship-driven or interest-driven. KidZui has been designed with both interest driven and friendship driven youth in mind. The Explore area and search box/url address bar are aimed to satisfy interest driven youth, whereas the event stream/friend list on the right hand side is aimed at friendship driven youth. Friendship and interest driven activities merge in the middle, where ZUIs and content intermingle.
Children are being pressured to learn more faster than ever, because contemporary society changes more rapidly than ever. At the same time parents are concerned about the content and people their children may encounter online. This is why children must have safe tools that let them explore their interests without the possible harm of inappropriate content and with the safety of interactions where they cannot reveal their identity to those they do not know.
Kids Pick Candidates on KidZui
If you were a kid, which Presidential candidate would you want to be friends with? As a fun experiment, we’ve decided to ask kids on KidZui. To participate, all kids need to do is sign up for KidZui and add Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, or Sarah Palin as a Zui friend. The totals are tallied in real time and show at:
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