Podcast05: Comparing Parental Control Options in Windows Vista and Mac OS 10.5 Leopard

This podcast is a conversation with my brother in law, Max Divine, who recently upgraded computers in his home to Windows Vista and has been exploring the options available within the new parental control settings. We discuss his experiences with the AT&T Smart Limits parental controls system, options available in Vista’s parental controls, and how those compare with the options available in the parental controls available with Macintosh OS 10.5 Leopard. We also discuss briefly the network-level content filtering available with OpenDNS, a free web-based service. As we mention several times, technology solutions like parental controls do NOT offer a substitute for ongoing, regular communication between parents and children. If parents want to use some sort of parental controls to limit Internet access and computer use, there are a variety of choices available depending on the age of the children and other factors. While there is not a “one size fits” all solution, it is good to see both Microsoft and Apple providing more tools for parents when it comes to digital boundaries. Whatever operating system(s) you use on home computers, I recommend that everyone look into and utilize the free OpenDNS service for content filtering.


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Shownotes:

1. Windows Vista Parental Controls
2. Macintosh OS 10.5 Leopard Parental Controls
3. AT&T Smart Limits
4. OpenDNS content filtering
5. My blog post "Home Internet Content filtering needs: Solved with OpenDNS"
6. Digital Dialog Social Network

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Podcast04: Introductory reflections on Children's Ministries in the 21st Century

This podcast is a recorded discussion between Shelly and Wesley Fryer about the first chapter of the book, "Children's Ministry in the 21st Century: The Encyclopedia of Practical Ideas" released in 2007 by Group Publishing. The first chapter by Rick Chromey is titled "Not of This World," and provides an overview of choices available to parents and other caregivers who aspire to help children develop into ethical, responsible decisionmakers in the 21st century information culture. Rather than follow either extreme of cultural isolation or immersion, Rick advises a middle course which not only promotes social inoculation of youth to negative influences within our culture, but also a higher path of incarnational living within culture that can ultimately transformative. Dialog, discernment, discipline, and the value of both relationships and words are emphasized. This chapter provides excellent ideas for framing conversations in "digital dialog" about the ways we should aspire to help our children develop into responsible and moral adults.


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Shownotes:

• "Children's Ministry in the 21st Century" by Craig Jutila, Jim Wideman, and Pat Verbal
• "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World: Seven Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People" (H. Stephen Glenn, Jane Ed.D. Nelsen)

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Podcast03: Content Filters and Parental Controls

In our third session of our Digital Dialog classes for parents, we focused on content filters and parental controls. Technology solutions cannot replace the importance of conversations, however, in helping parents and young people regularly communicate about what they are doing online, the places they are going and the people they are meeting. Links to the resources we discussed are included in the shownotes. Of particular importance is the new social networking website we created on ning.com for Digital Dialog. The web address is http://digitaldialog.ning.com. We hope this parenting series will continue later in April as a hands-on class in our church computer lab on Sunday afternoons!


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Shownotes:

• Links mentioned in our session are included on this wiki page

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Podcast02: Avoiding Malware and Whitelisting Websites

We had some technical problems with the recording of our second Digital Dialog session, so this podcast is a post-session recap of some of the issues we discussed. Among other topics we touched on avoiding malware with the free Firefox plug-in "No Scripts" and whitelisting websites with the built-in parental controls in Macintosh OS X. Next week we'll be covering more specifics of monitoring website use with free software programs for Windows XP. No matter what technology techniques are used, however, the key to safe and appropriate Internet use is conversation and regular communication.


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Shownotes:

• Our project wiki site: http://digitaldialog.wikispaces.com
• Referenced sites from this session (shared as a public Google Notebook)
  

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Podcast01: Introducing Digital Dialog

This podcast is a recording of the initial class on "digital dialog" held on March 1, 2007 at First Presbyterian Church of Edmond, Oklahoma. Shelly Fryer leads a discussion about digital social networking, Internet safety, and web destinations including WikiPedia, MySpace, Club Penguin, Imbee.com, and other sites. This is the initial session of a three part parent workshop on Internet safety, appropriate Internet use, and fun sites for kids to use online. Conversation is key. The authors hope this podcast helps foster more dialog!


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Please send feedback about our podcast to shellyfryer at yahoo dot com!

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Welcome to Digital Dialog!

Welcome to the digital dialog podcast! This podcast feed has been created to share recordings of discussions relating to the "Digital Dialog" parenting class which has started at First Presbyterian Church in Edmond, Oklahoma. The website http://digitaldialog.wikispaces.com/ has been created to share resources related to Internet Safety, appropriate Internet use, and FUN uses of the Internet. Please feel free to leave us comments here if you have feedback about the ideas and resources shared here. We don't have all the answers, but together we can come up with ways to address the array of challenges as well as opportunities we face in the 21st century digital environment.