Tuesday 3 February 2015

Parental Controls for gaming devices

Whether it is xbox or playstation, computer games are a central part of many students lives and while they are hugely entertaining there can be concerns about the amount of time a student may spend on games and the appropriateness of the content. The two most popular games consoles offer a range of parental controls that can enable you to set the content level and timings that the devices can be used amongst other controls. Remember that the starting point with regard to controlling access is the conversation that you have with your son or daughter as to why you feel that some control is necessary (please see the previous post with regard to setting up a conversation with regard to online safety). For advice on Playstation settings click here and for xbox click here

Snapchat: Friend or Foe

Snapchat is an application used to share photos, videos, text, and drawings. It’s free to download the app and free to send messages using it. It has become hugely popular in a very short space of time, especially with our students. There is one feature that makes Snapchat different from other forms of texting and photo sharing: in theory the messages disappear from the recipient’s phone after a few seconds.
This message will “self-destruct” in 10 seconds.

It is simple to use; you take a picture using your camera phone, select recipients from your contacts, decide how long you want the message to be visible for (up to 10 seconds), and click send.For the recipient, the process is very like getting a text message except they must keep their finger on the screen while viewing it. Also, the message disappears from their phone once the time limit has expired, although the details of the sender and the time stamp remain. The problem is that by using other apps a copy of the image could be taken and then circulated to others. This is a problem if the image that was sent could be seen as being embarrassing. As with all forms of online communication it is always a good idea to consider what could happen if that content becomes public. As always the message is think before you post. Check out the link here for more advice regarding safety settings on Snapchat.