One of the coolest memories I have as a kid is when my brother and I would copy BASIC programs from the computer magazines of the day (1980’s) into the old Franklin 64 desktop computer with one floppy drive and a whopping 64k of RAM. I’ll never forget when we finished typing the last line of that first program and then entered the command to RUN – how the screen started flashing characters and the miniature speaker beeped through a pathetic rendition of “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.”  Pure magic.  I was only 9 years old, but at that moment I was hooked on computers for life.

For anyone who has never created an application, it’s hard to describe the feeling of creating something from nothing. Programming is a lot like any other form of art in that way, except instead of the canvas we’ve got the computer screen, and instead of the paint brushes we have the various programming platforms.

Here at MakeUseOf, we believe in the importance of simple learning tools that can teach complex skills, such as computer programming. For example, Guy covered how you can learn to write a program with SmallBasic, and he also covered a cool application called Scratch that can teach kids how to program. Today, I’d like to cover another innovative software application called Alice that can teach kids how to program in object oriented languages.

Alice 3D Programming – What It Is & What It Isn’t

Alice 3D is a programming environment offered by Carnegie Mellon University. It’s provided for free as a public service, through the funding of various programming  and computer giants, such as Electronic Arts, Sun Microsystems, the National Science Foundation and other major organizations.

Alice is not a scripting tutorial where students will learn about the correct syntax used in various programming languages. It isn’t about developing the best structured For Loop. Instead, Alice provides students with a virtual world – a 3D modeling environment where students can learn how putting together various components, which each individually have their own properties, can create a larger, working project. The 3D environment is meant to show students, in a simple way, how the concept of object-oriented programming works.

The software itself has a built in tutorial, which makes sense because it’s main purpose is to serve as a teaching tool. The first screen allows students to choose from one of the tutorials, open a recent world they created, see examples or open a world they’ve saved on the computer. The option I want to show today is how a student can start from one of the available templates and create their own 3D animation. For this example I’ll go with the space scene.

If you’re a programmer, the first thing you’ll notice are the panes on the left side of the screen where all of the objects and the associated properties, methods and functions are listed. The interface is so intuitive that students don’t even need to understand what objects and methods are, just by adding objects and using the interface to manipulate them, they’ll be slowly learning the concept of object oriented programming. Adding an object to the screen is as simple as pressing the green “Add Objects” button.

In the object gallery, students have dozens of very fun “objects” to choose from. These include characters, machines, vehicles and even special effects like fire and thunderstorms.

In this scene, I’ve added the moon surface, a lunar lander and an astronaut. As you can see in the upper left window, every object is made up of many components, each individual objects with their own properties, methods and functions. You can control any one of these by dragging and dropping the component into the programming area at the bottom of the programming interface.

When you do drag the object in, a pop-up screen shows you all of the available methods and functions you can use to program the behavior of that particular object. This is similar to how, in most object oriented programming languages, the programming platform typically offers this same feature. Once you drill down through the available functions and select the one you want, it gets inserted into the program.

The program itself can be as simple or as complex as you like. As you can see here, it’s possible to create intricate and highly functional programs by using If/Else statements, While loops and other standard conditional statements that are a part of most programming languages today. Within a few minutes of playing around with this addictive learning program, I created a 3D animation where the astronaut moved closer to his lunar lander and waves “goodbye.”  The camera pans in closer, and then as the lunar lander launches without him on board, he says, “Uh-oh.”

The exciting thing about this fantastic free learning tool from Carnegie Mellon University is the fact that it can be a very simple learning tool for very young kids to learn basic programming skills, or it can be a useful tool for even high school kids to generate very intricate and ingenious programmed 3D worlds.

In either case, this is one of the best programs that teach computer programming to kids that encourages children to engage with their computers in ways that they may never have considered – with a depth of understanding kids just never really achieve when all they do is chat on IM and update their status on Twitter and Facebook. Alice helps kids understand the heart and soul of what makes computer technology and programming so cool.

Would you ever consider using Alice in your own school or as part of your curriculum? Is this a learning tool you would consider sharing with your own kids? Share your insight and experiences in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Top 3 Sites To Make Flash Cards For Your Kids (16)
• NeoK12 – Educational Kids Website that Teaches Your Children (5)
• Learn To Code At Any Level With Google Code University (7)
• Kids Can Learn Programming From Scratch! (40)
• How to Make Index Cards in Microsoft Word 2007 (12)

Guy was nice enough for forward the comment to me and here’s the answer: There’s no need. It’s built right into Mac OS X!

It’s called Parental Controls and it’s located in System Preferences. You may not have noticed it if you’re the sole user of your Mac but if you have children, Parental Controls can be a huge help. I’ll show you what it can do and how to set it up exactly.

Let’s dive right in! Launch System Preferences but before you can actually start to use Parental Controls, there needs to be a separate account to control. If your kid already has his or her own account on your Mac, perfect. Just select that account in Parental Controls to manage it. If not, then you’ll have to create a new account.

Head over to Accounts Settings and click on the plus button to add a new account. In the window that appears, select “Managed with Parental Controls“, fill in the appropriate fields and click “Create Account“. Right, the account has been created and is set to be managed by Parental Controls.

Now head over to Parental Controls (System Preferences -> Parental Controls) and select the account to configure its settings. To enable Parental Controls for existing accounts, simply click on “Enable Parental Controls” and the settings will appear.

Under the System tab, there are options to use a Simple Finder. This is basically a simplified Finder window. There is no sidebar and no navigation to system folders allowed. There is also an option to select applications you want to be made available to your child. It’s useful if you want to prevent your children from meddling with important apps or perhaps if you want to cut off their MSN privileges temporarily. If you check this box, the list below will unbrick and you are able to select exactly what you want your child to play with.

In the Content tab, you’re provided the option to filter profanity from the Dictionary and to restrict access to certain websites. If you’d like to give your children some room to play, you could use Apple’s filter to automatically limit access to adult websites. In addition to that, you can also add specific sites to the white- or blacklist. Personally, I find that option to have the best balance of leniency and compromise.

In the next tab, Mail and iChat, the idea is really simple: the applications will only allow communication between people on the whitelist. The thought of unsupervised children chatting online is definitely one of a parent’s worst nightmares. Who are they chatting with? Now you can safely control their communication without being overly intrusive.

The next tab is something we’re very interested in. Time Limits is very easy to use and when put into action, it is simply the best way to get your child to bed on time! You can set daily weekday and weekend time limits as well as bedtime restrictions! Your child is logged off automatically as soon as it’s time for bed! Sure, there could be times when your kids have a project due and could use a couple more hours on the computer – that’s something very easy to overcome, I’ll show you how it’s done in a while. But now, let’s log in to an account managed by Parental Controls to see how it will look like, shall we?

As you can instantly recognize, the Finder is simplified to show only the allowed applications. Navigation is crippled so your children can’t delete or modify any of your precious files.

If you’d like to change any of the Parental Controls settings, there’s no need to log off and log into your account. Say, your child wants to access his favorite website, which you had unfortunately overlooked when modifying the whitelist, no worries. You can add it instantly by entering your password (if you have an administrator’s account).

If you’ve set time limits, the remaining time is visible within a drop down menu once you click on the clock. Your children will receive an alert 15 minutes before the time runs out completely and they are able to save their work or ask your permission for more time to play.

Parental Controls is really awesome and extremely useful if you’re a parent. It will allow you to monitor and restrict your kids’ computer activity without being too intrusive. Settings which you’re able to control i.e. communication, apps, navigation; are really flexible and can be changed on the fly. Your child will always go to bed on time, and you can sleep soundly knowing that they’re safe from online intruders.

If there are any other apps that operate better than Parental Controls, I’ll be glad to hear about them. Leave your suggestions in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Free Software Apps to Limit Your Kids’ Online Time (18)
• 5 Sites That Promote Internet Safety For Kids (14)
• 5 Free Parental Control Software That Will Set Your Mind At Ease (16)
• 2 Addons to Add Internet Parental Control to Firefox (17)
• Visikid- Free Parental Internet Control Software to Monitor Your Child Online (14)

People will catch on, however (well, hopefully). You could try searching for similar parody sources in our Top 10 Websites for Fake News & Satire, but it eventually becomes a prank that can only be pulled on easy targets like your grandparents or technologically unsavvy parents.

How about a way to create your own fake news prank headlines? With the ability to add a little personal touch by customizing names and stories, you can make your article more believable or outrageous with fake news story generators. Here’s the three best ones.

WasArrested

WasArrested is one of the best websites to create your own fake news prank story. It’s very simple and quick to do. Start off by typing in the victim’s name, city, and gender.

Then comes the fun part of choosing which story you want. You can select anything from “Has Sex With Sheep” to “Drinks From The Toilet.” If you don’t see a story you like, you can write one up yourself and even upload an image to go along with the article.

The website will create a link for your fake news prank and you can start sending the URL to anyone you please.

There it is. According to what looks like CNN’s site, I was arrested for indecent exposure! Looks pretty legitimate to me.

FakeAWish

FakeAWish is sort of the celebrity version of WasArrested. First, simply type in the first and last name of any star of your choice. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings (I know, I know), so I took it upon myself to use my own name again.

As for the stories you can pick, most of them don’t look too good for your celebrity target, ranging from missing, hospitalized, or just dead. What have I gotten myself into this time?

The end result is an article on what looks like a classic Yahoo! News page with the story you selected. In this case, some news agency called Global Associated News is reporting that I’m presumed dead in a private plane crash. Can’t they get anything right?

Fodey

If you’re looking to create a fake newspaper clipping, head over to Fodey. Just think up of a completely made-up story and have it look like it was published on some newspaper’s front page.

It’s really easy to do. Type in name of the newspaper, the date, and start entering in whatever news article you can come up with.

Once you’ve generated the newspaper clipping, you can preview it and download the image.

There you have it. It’s 2036, MakeUseOf is now a newspaper, and Google is taking over the world. Huh.

Looking for more fun? MUO’s Directory of Apps has got details on DeadFake, a fake email service, and HoaxCall, an online prank call maker.

Go ahead and try out the fake news story generators for yourself. Are any of them crowd pleasers? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Top 10 Disgusting Websites to Share With Friends (40)
• The 4 Funniest Online Name Generators (12)
• Mr.Breakfast – All about Breakfast Cereals! Top 100 Cereals, History & more (8)
• Faux News: 10 Best Websites for Fake News & Satire (19)
• Create Cool Fantasy Nicknames with Ryder – A Macho Name Generator [Mac] (4)

What you need are Hand Games! Everyone with hands can play them, and we all have hands! OK, most of us have hands. Those that don’t can referee or be enthusiastic spectators! Don’t know what a hand game is? Sure you do. We’ll start with a classic hand game. Rock, Paper, Scissors.

The World RPS Society

The sheer magnitude of the Rock Paper Scissors world is beyond comprehension. I couldn’t believe what I saw at this site. Did you know that there is a $10,000 World Championship sponsored by Yahoo!?

The World RPS site is a lot of fun and little fact. They talk about how using RPS was made a legal way to make a binding decision in London, England in 1842. Not true. Entertaining, but not true. Apparently, RPS had its start in Japan as Jan Ken Pon. That’s from Wikipedia, so that might not be true as well. For some reason, it seems more logical to me though.

Nevertheless, if you are looking for a definitive guide to the Ro Sham Beau hand game, this is the site. Study the Great 8 Gambits, look into the psychology of the game and some of finer details such as ’shadowing’ and ‘broadcasting false tells’.

There are also very detailed rules for the game that you might want to incorporate into your daily play. Does someone doubt the validity of a move? Maybe you can’t decide to throw on 3 or do 3 and then throw. The rules will guide you, my hand-jiving friend, the rules will guide you.

Monochrom’s Massive Multiplayer Thumbwars

Maybe RPS is too hard to get a hand on. Maybe you’re just all thumbs when it comes to hand games. If that’s the case, I’m sure you’d excel at the latest in thumb wars – multiplayer! No more one on one, with your cousin with the freakishly monkey like thumb that reach your thumb even while it’s still in the air. Level the playing field by bringing in the rest of the mutated family and friends.

There are oh-so-many ways to thumb wrestle, I’m surpised there isn’t a world championship for this as well. Check out the basic four-player situation:

Got a few more people to play with? Maybe your at a family reunion and all the moonshine is already gone. Uncle Bob is looking for a fight and Great Aunt Marcie is willing to give him one, so all the cousins jump in. Why have that same old fist fight again? Settle with a thumb war a la the ‘Down Under’ configuration. Everyone has their hands together so they can’t start swinging AND they are in a prime position to aspirate without starting another fight.

Seriously though, I think wearing shoes like those demands fisticuffs.

Mercy

I would rather be in a fist fight with a multi-armed Indian god than play mercy again. Certainly this hand game is responsible for more broken and/or dislocated fingers than all the car-doors and nose-picking accidents combined. If you’ve never played – ignore what I just said. Read up on the rules and play with a friend. It’s jolly good clean fun!

The point of the game is to interlock fingers as though you were intimately holding hands, and then try to crush your opponents knuckles and inflict carpal tunnel syndrome until they bellow with their last breath, “Mercy!” Apparently there are some regional differences in what is said to signify your submission: “Peanuts!” or “Danny Stavros Buck”, “Pinochle” or “Uncle”. All of which make no sense to me except “Uncle”. Who the heck is Danny Stavros Buck? By the time I spit that chestnut out, I would have lost several fingers indeed!

For your entertainment, I present one of the most unique games of Mercy that I have ever seen.

So now that you and your gameless buddy’s have used your hands to the limit for fun and pleasure, you might want to consider some Aspercream or Voltaren Emulgel. The Voltaren seems to work especially quick. Honestly.

Once you’ve got your fingers working again, drop us a line and let us know about your favourite hand games. Maybe you had a particularly epic one. Give a shout in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Mr.Breakfast – All about Breakfast Cereals! Top 100 Cereals, History & more (8)
• Top 3 Ways for Kids To Make Money Online (45)
• Top 3 Fake News Prank Story Generators (3)
• Top 10 Conspiracy Web Sites (44)
• Top 10 Activities To Do When There’s A Power Outage (8)

Now think back to when you were a kid and how many pickup games of road hockey, baseball or even cricket that you had. (Do European and Australian kids have pick-up games of cricket? I’m just trying to be more inclusive.) At least once or twice a week? Nothing organized, just a bunch of kids getting together and having fun.

So, where did the kids go? I know there are kids out there or we wouldn’t have Hannah Montana or toy stores. The kids are inside, surfing the Internets, IM’ing their BFF’s, Facebooking and YouTubing. If you’re like me, you know life is to be lived – not watched. So what to do?

How about free software to limit your kids’ online time on the computer?

Here’s a free one to check out:

Romaco Timeout

This is a fine piece of freeware from fellow Canuck, Mark Furneaux (a.k.a. TheUbuntuGuy – no relation). It simply does what it says it will. Perhaps the only caveat is to make sure that when you install it, that you select the Install for Everyone option. That way you can apply it to whichever users are on the computer.

Take a look at the settings window and I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out exactly how to use this software. The beauty is the simplicity.

When the Romaco Control Panel opens, you must enter a password before you can even change any settings. Of course, choose a password that your kids won’t guess. Once you’ve done that, the rest of the Control Panel is accessible.

In order to make the program start counting down, you must check the Enable Timeout checkbox. From there, you can choose the method you want to put healthy limits on the computer usage.

Do you want them to be on the computer for no more than an hour or two a day? Choose the Daily Quota option.

Did you say they could only go on for half-an-hour before supper? Choose the Per-Session Timeout.

With the Per-Session Timeout, you do have to set it for a minimum of  15 minutes. Now, if you set the Warn n minutes before action option in either scenario, there is NO WAY the little goobers can say, “I didn’t know it was going to shut off.” Or the ever-popular, “It’s not fair! I didn’t have time to save my game. I need to get back on and get to a save point!”

Personally, I would only respond to that last statement with my patented, “Did I promise you fair?” accompanied by the arched eyebrow. See that warning below? It scales to whatever size your screen is. They can click the OK button to continue their Twittering.

There are two possible outcomes from setting the timer – Log Off or Shut Down. How you choose is up to you. Log off is good enough for our kids since they know that they’ve had enough time and respect us. Ha! I almost typed that last line with a straight-face.

I’d also recommend checking the Startup Automatically For This User. That way it will startup automatically for that user. That was redundant.

Once you have it set as you want, simply click on the Run Immediately button. The countdown will begin. Then click on the Apply and Close button. That will minimize the Romaco Timeout to the system tray – out of the way.

The only easy way to stop the program now, is to open the Timeout Control Panel from the system tray icon and enter the password. If you’ve done your job right, the kids won’t be able to cirvumvent this. Unless they are more into computers than just surfing. In that case, you may want to look at registry tweaks to disable the Task Manager.

I can’t promise you that your neighbourhood will fill up with kids playing and laughing by using Timeout. What you do with your kids when they step away from the flickering-blue babysitter is up to you.

What other methods do you use to help keep their computer usage healthy? How do you encourage them to get outside and just play? I’m all ears and willing to learn. Just leave me a note in the comments below.

Image Credit : krisandapril

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Parental Controls – Safely Restrict Your Kids’ Computer Access [Mac] (5)
• Visikid- Free Parental Internet Control Software to Monitor Your Child Online (14)
• Roblox – A Cool Lego-Based Free Virtual World for Kids (22)
• Restrict Windows and Web Access for Kids with KidsMenu (12)
• Preschool Online Games That Are Fun For Children (16)

There are a number of free parental control software packages and some tools designed to assist parents in this very task. Here are five that are worth a look.

Windows Parental Control Software

Windows has been offering parental control features (or some that are close to the feature) from some time now. Internet Explorer has had a content advisor since ages ago. The recent version of Windows offer even greater control. Barring the Business edition, all other Windows editions ship with parental control. You would have to create a separate account for kids (which is the sensible thing to do anyway), then you can access and manage parental controls from the Windows Control Panel. You can limit the amount of time your kids spend on the computer, the applications they can use and for how long; and you can also get an activity report of what they have been up to.

OpenDNS

OpenDNS not only resolves web addresses quickly. It also offers a host of other interesting features similar to free parental control software which you can use to protect users from phishing attacks of unsuitable content on the Internet. All you need to do in order to use OpenDNS is to set the nameservers for your computer or router. Once this is done, go ahead and create a free web account. This will let you manage what to allow and give you detailed statistics as well.

OpenDNS maintains a list of websites, broken down into categories that you can use to make browsing a little safer. You can also create your own blacklists to restrict access to any sites you don’t want your kids to view.

Kidzui

Kidzui is safe, free parental control software in the form of a web browser for kids. It let’s the children access games, videos and content that have been approved by parents around the world. One really nice feature of Kidzui is that it takes up the entire screen by default, hiding the Windows interface so that children don’t wander off elsewhere on your computer. Kidzui is great if you want to set up a hassle-free, safe and educational window to the web for your young ones. Here is the complete scoop.

Visikid

Visikid is more of a monitoring application with a strong focus on your kid’s activities. It monitors the applications that are accessed and the sites that are visited along with the time spent on them. All this information is presented to you nicely categorized should you choose to know what your kids have been up to. There are graphs, custom categories and much more on the Visikid dashboard that you can access at their website. Here is the complete review.

Pikluk

Pikluk also allows you to create list of websites that you deem suitable for your kids. Similar to Kidzui, it provides a safe means to access educational websites, games and all the usual features. A distinguishing feature is that you can create a Pikluk email address for your children and create a white list of users they are allowed to communicate with. Any email to or from anyone not on the list will be blocked.

Video sites for kids

Videos are generally very popular among kids but allowing access to something like Youtube is fishing in troubled waters. Although they are not strictly parental control tools, sites like ZuiTube and Totlol take a lot of burden off your shoulders when letting your kids watch videos online. These sites list videos that are fun, educational and moderated to be child-safe.

With all the tools combined and a careful strategy, you can be reasonably sure your kids are safe on the computer. However, nothing can match the caring and watchful attention of parents. We suggest you stick to that from time to time as well. Also check out 5 sites that promote internet safety for kids for some serious in depth information on the topic

What do you think about these? Do you know of some other useful tools for similar purposes? Sound off in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Visikid- Free Parental Internet Control Software to Monitor Your Child Online (14)
• Parental Controls – Safely Restrict Your Kids’ Computer Access [Mac] (5)
• Let Your Geeky Kids Play Online With KidZui (19)
• How To Restrict Access to Websites with Privoxy [Part 2] (11)
• 5 Sites That Promote Internet Safety For Kids (14)

If a kid is especially skilled at leveling up in specific popular MMOG’s, or has a natural skill at creating virtual items, clothes or acquiring virtual “toys” (you’d be absolutely amazed what kids can do online today), then your own kid stands the chance to earn some pretty good money. In fact, should they spend several hours a day focused on this “job,” they could probably make almost as much as you do! Don’t believe it? I recently wrote an article about how teens can make money online by writing articles or writing programs for clients, but in this article I’d like to introduce you to the brave new frontier known as the virtual marketplace.

#1 – How Kids Can Make Money Online With Account Leveling

Do your kids spend countless hours playing popular multiplayer online games? Or maybe you don’t allow them to, but they constantly beg for more time for gaming? Or, on a more personal level, maybe you are one of those kids who love online gaming but your parents are constantly hounding you about getting off Halo or Second Life and telling you to find a job with all of that “spare time” you’ve got to play games.

Well, I’m here to offer all of the kids of a world with a powerful bargaining chip. What if gaming could be a job? What if you could earn more by leveling up in World of Warcraft than you could by flipping burgers are your local Burger King? This could be one of the most remarkable ways for kids to make money. Well I’m here to show you how that’s actually possible – depending on your particular skills within the virtual world.

Starting with the most popular MMOG site, World Of Warcraft, it’s not difficult to recognize how quickly such a community can turn into a dream opportunity for entrepreneurs. You’ve got a huge community of folks all working toward achieving similar goals. Some folks are much better at it than others, and excel much faster. In fact, there are some gamers who can level up on games like WoW or Halo to crazy levels in just a matter of hours. They know what to do, where to go and how to get it done.

Other people like to socialize, spend hours just roaming around and performing occasional quests. One thing mostly all MMOG players have in common is an envy for the “top echelon” of levels, and a common respect for those gamers who’ve made it there. This envy creates a marketplace by principle of “supply and demand.”  The demand for having an account that’s at a high, powerful level – and a low supply because of the difficulty and skill required in getting there. This gives skilled gamers an edge in a growing niche market.

If you want proof that there’s such a marketplace that even exists, just take a look at BuyMMOAccounts, one of the more popular places online to buy and sell WorldOfWarcraft accounts. Sure, some of these levels are amazing and not exactly easy, but you can be sure that if someone will pay almost $200 for a top account, they’ll be willing to pay you $50 to $100 for an account that gets them past all of the boring and annoying newbie levels that new players have to suffer through. There are people willing to invest in bypassing those levels, and you could use your gaming skills to offer them that valuable product that they desire. While WoW is the most popular for buying and selling accounts, almost every single MMOG out there creates its own marketplace. Play4Uber is a good example of a place where you can enter six such marketplaces to peddle your high-level accounts.

Play4Uber includes a section for WoW (both US and EU), GuildWars, Lord of the Rings Online, Final Fantasy XI and Eve Online. These are only two sample websites in a growing sea of sites that are popping up and offering you, the expert gamer, an opportunity to earn some awesome cash from those skills that you’ve developed during those late-night, Red Bull fueled gaming sessions.

#2 – Making Money With Special Items

If you or your kid is not so much a “leveling-up” sort of gamer, but you instead prefer participating in virtual worlds where items are earned, created, bought and sold in much the same way they are in the real world, then there are also money making opportunities for you too. In particular, the world of Second Life is seriously transforming what it means to be working online.This represents one of the coolest ways for kids to make money virtually.

At first, Second Life was a huge online community that was mostly just a novelty. But, as that community grew and the user base exploded, opportunities also grew for savvy and creative virtual entrepreneurs. Second Life offers users a creative and very flexible design tool where users can build their own items, from amazing cars to clothing to jewelry and more. Scripting is included so creators can incorporate functionality and behavior to those items. Rare, customized items are very much a status symbol within this virtual world – and they are rapidly increasing in demand and value. The place where you sell your items are most commonly right there in the virtual world. Blogs and forums throughout the Internet discuss the amazing items within their favorite niche, which you can find and buy on Second Life, such as this UK blog called “Music Thing.”

People actively spend their time designing item after item, and place them up for sale in their virtual Second Life store. Think kids can’t do something like this? Well then you may not be aware of Teen Second Life.

#3 – Raking In The Cash With Toddler Games Too

Most of the virtual income opportunities I’ve discussed in this article are focused on older kids, usually teens, who are now pros at games like Halo or World of Warcraft. But, what about those little ones who’ve grown tired of their Webkinz account (or should we say their Webkinz mansion) that they’ve spent several years building up. You’ve spent lots of cash buying those little stuffed animals and collecting codes, and your little kid spent hours playing games and collecting cool Webkinz items for their Webkinz home. Is there a way for your child to rake in a little cash for all of that effort? You bet there is – help them sell their Webkinz home.

Searching Craigslist for Webkinz accounts or Webkinz homes turns up an entire marketplace for Webkinz, and if your kid is especially adept at turning that $5 to $10 Webkinz code that comes with a stuffed animal into a sweet $50+ sale in a few days, that’s a nice wad of cash for their piggy bank!

It’s a whole new world online, and getting a “real job” just doesn’t mean what it used to. There are now virtual jobs that pay more than real jobs in most communities, and letting your kids explore the virtual world as an entrepreneur (rather than just as a gamer) will teach them business and marketing skills that they’d probably never otherwise learn.

Do you think online gaming is a growing market opportunity? Have you ever sold gaming items or accounts for real cash? Share your experience in the comments section below!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• The Top 3 Online Multiplayer Games (MMO) For Youngsters (29)
• Manga Fighter – MMO Arena Fighting Game For Kids (5)
• Xiah Rebirth – Martial Arts Themed MMORPG (5)
• Quake Live – Free Online Shooting Game in Your Browser (22)
• Project Powder – Online Multiplayer Snowboarding Game (7)

• You don’t have to worry about security, system maintenance and updates.
• A separate, unprivileged account for your kids makes sure that anything they could possible to to the system is limited to one account; if anything goes wrong just delete it and create another one.
• Call of Duty, zombies, and other modern 3D PC games won’t run without additional emulation software and hackery. Safe to say, if your kid manages to play Crysis on a Ubuntu box using just WINE, his future’s looking bright.

Kanagram mixes up the letters of a word, creating an anagram. You have to guess what the mixed up word is. Kanagram is a great children’s Linux program that features several built-in word lists, hints, and a cheat feature which reveals the original word. Kanagram also has a vocabulary editor, so you can make the game be as hard as you want it to be.

Kanagram is cool, but wait until you hear about GCompris. Designed to be the end-all be-all of children’s Linux educational software suites, it has about 100 activities, and an age recommendation of 2-10. It’s got everything you’d want, from reading practice, to science, algebra, drawing, geography quiz and even chess. There are even activities for discovering the computer’s peripherals. When you start the program, GCompris presents the list of activities, and a control bar at the bottom.

Each icon stands for an activity. When the mouse is hovering over it, more information appears: the name, description and author of the activity are displayed in the description area. A click on the icon will lead you to an activity or a menu of activities. GCompris is translated into more than 50 languages.

We’ve all seen the commercial with the kid who likes drawing on the furniture. Oddly enough, his mother is happy about that because she was anxious to test her new Pronto spray. In real life, I think you’d rather install TuxPaint and let the creativity flow freely on the computer screen. It’s recommended for kids aged 3 through 12, it has easy to use interface and a funny penguin that sits in the bottom left and encourages your efforts.

Finally, we’ve got Earth3D, which is very similar to Google Earth and is a great way to teach your kid about geography. Unlike its Google counterpart, Earth3D taps into various map providers and time stamps. You can watch the ice in Greenland melt away before your eyes,  learn country flags and borders.

You can install any of the Ubuntu software discussed in this article by searching for their name in the Synaptic Package Manager, checking the box on the left of its name and clicking ”Apply Changes”. To launch Synaptic, choose System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

Most children’s Linux educational software is readily available for other distributions such as Fedora or SuSE, in their respective package managers, so try searching for the application name. We describe the installation process for Ubuntu because it’s the most widely used of the bunch.

You might want to check out some other posts related to Linux, Ubuntu or education, here on MakeUseOf. We have also published the “Newbie’s Getting Started Guide to Linux” ebook.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Top 3 Sites To Make Flash Cards For Your Kids (16)
• NeoK12 – Educational Kids Website that Teaches Your Children (5)
• Alice Teaches Object Oriented Computer Programming To Kids (17)
• Use Memoriser to Memorize Information Fast During Work Day (3)
• Tweak Ubuntu the Easy Way (16)

But in the early 80’s I found a cereal that I loved – it was called Pac Man from General Mils. After the Pac Man craze died down the cereal went missing. They stopped making it. When I talk to young whipper snappers today about it they usually shrug their shoulders and say, “Do you mean Crunch Berries or Captain Crunch?”

No, I do not. I sighed and thought to myself, “I wish there was a database of all cereals young and old.” I looked for a bit and then blamo! Just like that, I now have a website that can show you pictures, videos and images of those cereals you loved as a kid! Wow, what a great bunch of people dedicated to cereal!

Let’s take a look at a feature of a website called Mr. Breakfast — the particular feature is the cereal project. It is located here. The website is about all things breakfast but this section about cereals is about all things cereal, including breakfast cereal history. This is what we are looking at today.

When you arrive at the site you will see a section with featured cereals and videos and even a generic super hero. You will see a page that looks like this:

You will see a menu bar at the top of your screen. Simply click on Cereal Project to get the menu or scroll down to see the site.

From there, I went right to the Top 100 Cereals. I can’t even fathom what would be ranked #1. But as you can see below, they do have good old Captain Crunch as #1 with Frosted Flakes coming in second. I know number four but have NEVER seen #3. How about you?

You can click on any one of them and it will give you detailed information including links to videos (commercials) and other images and fun breakfast cereal history facts, like you can see below for this C3P0 Cereal I chose:

Hmmm, I didn’t see my Pac Man cereal so I hit the menu and choose the alphabetical list. From there I drilled down to P and then scrolled down a little bit:

I was excited! I had not seen that box in decades! I clicked on it and arrived at its individual page:

They even had a YouTube video of the commercial that we all knew and loved way back when:

I got lost in this website for over an hour. I got all nostalgic and then I wanted to eat some cereal. I settled for the number one choice on the top 100 – Good old Captain Crunch. Or as they like to call him in Futurama – The Admiral.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Top 10 Activities To Do When There’s A Power Outage (8)
• 3 Top Sites For Cool Games Using Your Hands (9)
• 3 Great Sites For Old Wives’ Tales & Superstitions (0)
• 3 Fun Poetry Video Games (13)
• Top 8 Websites To Find The Latest UFO Sightings (19)

We want to teach them as well! GASP! Yes I said it, let’s try and use the Internet tubes to teach our children while they are having fun!

Double Gasp!

Let’s journey on over to the educational kids website neok12 and see what they have to offer our kids. NeoK12 has a lot of videos for kids that are in grades kindergarten through 12th grade. The best part is that each of these videos has already been viewed and verified by teachers also in grades K through 12.

So no surprise pornography or advertising geared towards children.

As soon as you hit the site you will see this:

Yes that is a LOT of text! There are lots of categories broken down into The Sciences (including Physical, Life, Human Body, Earth, Space, etc.) and others like Social Studies, English, Math and then Fun Videos for a treat (but they are still educational!) Click on any of the topics to drill down your search or type in a search term on the right hand side of the site.

I clicked on the sub-topic under Math titled Numbers. That brought me to this screen:

Now this stuff is right up my 2 year old daughter’s alley! I clicked on the first link – Counting Numbers 1-10 and sat back (I ignored the strange looks from my co-workers as this stuff blasted out of my speakers.)

And just like that the little ones can watch and learn. You can also help tag the videos for the educational audience you think it is appropriate for. Like I choose Primary Grades for this one. Next up I decided to click on Fun Videos. This brought me to a section with Nursery Rhymes. Something I LOVED as a child. Why not use this to introduce little Kayla to them?

I chose the old American classic Jack and Jill… You know the one ruined by Andrew Dice Clay in the early nineties!:) Again I sat back and watched the video also provided via youTube.

When I was finished being entertained by that I went to check out some science. I clicked on Earth and saw these selections:

Very cool stuff to help children of all ages learn. Children are our experiments – let’s help them thrive! Give them every opportunity to learn!

With this educational kids website, you can also create playlists, monitor what your children have done  on the site and recommend other videos for them to index. All in all this is a great idea and we should all help it along with a little nudge!  Tell your friends that have children that neoK12 is here to help them out!

Do you have other favorite educational kids websites? If so share the links in the comments below. I am sure there is someone out there that will thank you!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Top 3 Sites To Make Flash Cards For Your Kids (16)
• Alice Teaches Object Oriented Computer Programming To Kids (17)
• 4 Linux Applications To Keep Your Kids Ahead of the Game (15)
• Use Memoriser to Memorize Information Fast During Work Day (3)
• Top Educational Websites For Children That Are Fun (29)

I’ve had a colleague who sometimes had to bring her 3 year old son to work when the nanny was sick and no one else was available to take care of him. We all helped keeping him busy and now and then he would also enjoy some games on the computer.

Here are five ways to distract your child and keep any kid busy for a few minutes when you absolutely need it.

MysteryNet’s Kids Mysteries

This website is suited for kids who can already read and love to explore. If you don’t want your kid to simply consume, but rather use their brain and learn something new, you should give this one a try.

In Solve-it and Quick-solve your kid can read short stories and solve difficult cases, based on the information the stories reveal. Was it the gardener? The Chiller section hosts scary stories.

Finally, to impress family and friends alike, the website explains some simple magic tricks everyone can learn.

KideoPlayer

Certainly, the easiest way to keep kids busy is with videos. When the television is not an option, let me tell you, neither is YouTube. You never know what they will zap into next. Pre-filtered content is always the best idea.

KideoPlayer is a family safe YouTube player for kids. It’s extremely simple to handle. Load the page and videos will begin to play automatically. Don’t like the clip, hit the space bar for the next one. There is one button for the most popular videos and a second one just for moms. This makes the site suitable for very young kids.

ZuiTube

Your child may be a little more demanding, wanting to select from a collection of clips. In that case I recommend ZuiTube, which claims to have the largest video collection for kids.

Your kid can choose from New TV & Cartoons, Movies, Funniest Videos, New Music, Dinosaurs, and Animation. I’m sure there is at least one category they will find exciting.

Within the main categories, there are many more subcategories to explore. And while your child makes their selection, you can relax because you know the material is safe.

Crayola Coloring

Kids love color and you can give them what they want with Crayola Coloring. It’s an ace up your sleeve when all you have to offer is a boring office and a computer.  Besides, even if your kid is creative and tempted to color your walls, that’s not gonna work with these colors.

The kid can choose from different types of pens, tip sizes, and colors. The result can even be printed.

Storyline Online

Do you read stories to your children? It’s something wonderful to do and usually has a very calming effect on children, but it takes a lot of time. Why not give your children a little more of it, but have someone else do it?

At Storyline Online you will find many short stories read by many famous members of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. Now they can always claim that a celebrity read them stories when they were small.

We have previously covered games that can keep kids busy.

• Abraham wrote about 10 Open Source Online Games For Kids.
• Guy introduced Roblox – A Cool Lego-Based Free Virtual World for Kids.
• Karl has covered several online games suitable for kids. For example Preschool Online Games That Are Fun For Children or Noggin + Babysmash = One Happy Baby! (Windows).
• I recently introduced 5 Cool Free Internet Games for Kids That’ll Make them Love Math.

What is the most fascinating and self-directed distraction for your child?

Image credits: jmjvicente

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Preschool Online Games That Are Fun For Children (16)
• Top Educational Websites For Children That Are Fun (29)
• Top 10 Free Genealogy Websites to Find Ancestors (26)
• ToddlerKeys Makes Your Windows Computer Baby Friendly! (9)
• Roblox – A Cool Lego-Based Free Virtual World for Kids (22)

Flash cards have been used for years by teachers, psychiatrists and parents for years to help children learn and to enjoy themselves.

If you want to make flash cards for your kids then the three sites below will be of great use to you. They’re simple to use and have some great flash cards for tons of different purposes.

ESL Flash cards

This site to make flash cards is aimed more towards the classroom environment. As you can see from the screenshot, Eric (the guy who runs the site) aims to help teachers teach their students the basics such as verbs, the alphabet, body parts and animals.

When you click on the flash card collection you want, you’ll have three options. Large, medium or small. Large is one per page, medium is two and small is several depending on the size of the cards. When you choose your option, it will open the flashcards in a PDF viewer. I suggest Acrobat Reader for this task as it handles images very well. It is available for download here. (or check out Guy’s post on alternative readers or Simon’s post).

Then simply print out the screenshots as you would with any other document. Using glossy photo paper or laminating the flash cards is a good idea as they will undoubtedly see lots of usage in a classroom or at home.

Flash card Exchange

Here we have a site that is a web-based flash card study aid. Basically, when you first visit the site there will be tons of different tags and options that you can choose such as ‘Maths’, ‘French’, ‘Medicine’ and so on. When you click on your chosen subject you will be given a list of flash card sets. Select one. By clicking on the flashcard that asks the question you will expose the answer. By clicking on the answer you move onto the next flashcard.

Along the top of the flashcard window there is an option to print the flashcards which you can use to print and make flash cards. This site offers less formatting than the pervious one for printing but is suitable for flash cards that you need made up quick and easy.

Other features this site offers are the ability to download the flash cards to use offline and a timer to time how long you have been studying. All are available along the top of the flash card window before you begin to view the flash cards.

ProProfs

Without a doubt, this is the best site for those who want to create their own flash cards or use those created by others. When you first go to the site, register for an account. It’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Then, when back on the homepage click ‘Create Flashcards ’.

This will bring you to the creation screen. Enter in the title, tags and other information as seen in the screenshot. Then, down the screen, enter in the question for your first flash card. Then, to the right of the question enter in the answer. You can also upload images instead of typing in the question and answer.

Down the end of the page, click the ‘Create Flash cards’ button. This will bring you to the page where your flash card series is available. You can print, edit or view your flash cards. If you choose to print them the question will be on one side of the page with the answer on the other by default.

This site will also provide you with a profile page where all your flashcards, review and comments are available.

A piece of advice:

If you’re making flash cards for very young children its best to use simple cartoons. Flash cards for teenagers and adults work best when there are good quality photos that they can see clearly and remember.

Which sites do you use to make flash cards?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Use Memoriser to Memorize Information Fast During Work Day (3)
• NeoK12 – Educational Kids Website that Teaches Your Children (5)
• How to Make Index Cards in Microsoft Word 2007 (12)
• Alice Teaches Object Oriented Computer Programming To Kids (17)
• 5 Tips to Prevent Internet Addiction and Study More Effectively (18)

As adults, we have ways of dealing with many of these things because we have the tools and the wisdom that comes with age.  However, when it comes to Internet safety for kids, our children need our help.

Previously here on MakeUseOf, some writers have already written articles on some tools that are available (Visikid, Free Norton OnlineFamily, 2 Parental Control Add-ons for Firefox, and even Preschool Online Games).  I, too, have written an article or two about child safety (Keeping Your Kids Safe Online).

In this article I would like to introduce a list of 5 sites who’s sole purpose is to keep kids safe while they’re online:

NetSmartz

NetSmartz is a colorfully decorated site dedicated to educating others about Internet safety for kids.  From the first glance of the front page, it is easy to tell that they offer material for several categories of people: Parents & guardians, educators, law enforcement, teens, and kids.

What exactly does NetSmartz offer that works to keep your kids safe?  Let’s take a look:

Parents:

Communication is an effective tool for parents and guardians when helping their children avoid the dangers that exist on the Internet. NetSmartz provides on- and offline learning activities for parents to facilitate discussions with their children and teens about Internet safety. Visit “Parent FAQ” to learn more about how and why parents should use NetSmartz.

Educators:

This page is designed to show educators and administrators how to use NetSmartz interactive materials in their classrooms, accumulate more information about Internet safety and technology, and take steps to bring their classrooms into the 21st century.

Law enforcement:

Law-enforcement officers often receive invitations to conduct Internet safety presentations in schools and communities. NetSmartz offers a variety of resources to law enforcement to assist them in their efforts to keep their communities safer. Whether the presentation is 10 minutes long or 2 hours, for children or adults, NetSmartz resources can accommodate the circumstance.

Teens:

Today’s teens have a knowledge of the Internet that often surpasses that of their parents. Because so many teens are Internet savvy, it is imperative that they also have an understanding of the dangers that exist online and how to deal with them. Watch teens share their own “Real-Life Stories” about issues affecting them on the Internet such as cyberbullying, online enticement, and giving out too much personal information.

Kids:

There is a whole site dedicated to Kids called NetSmartzKids where you’ll find all sorts of games and activities specifically designed to reinforce Internet safety for kids.

Stop by and check them out!  You may find material worth your while!

WiredSafety

WiredSafety is another great site for helping to keep your kids safe online.  Although the graphics aren’t as colorful or extensive, don’t let that fool you into thinking that they skimped on information! On top of cybercrime, cyberlaw, and an FAQ section.

Information on the following subjects is presented: cyberstalking and harassment, kids online, spyware and adware, email safety, chatting online, online gaming safety, downloading music safety, identity theft, and so much more!

They also have online AND printable materials for training and even offer speakers for events!

Check them out and see what else they have to offer.

WiredMoms

WiredMoms is more of a community, a place for mothers to meet and learn from each other.  From the horse’s mouth:

This site is your virtual back fence – a place where you can come and meet with other moms to share stories and learn different ways to navigate through the latest technologies that our kids seem to know intuitively.

The site has an interesting column entitled “Ask Eva” where readers can ask questions and have them answered on the site!

This day and age we need all the support we can get.  If you can find other people in the same place (this case is specifically about keeping kids safe online) then you can begin to set up a support system and perhaps even find some friends along the way.

Microsoft – Protect your family – Beyond the basics

Microsoft has a good page on the subject of child safety online.

They have several tips on topics such as keeping passwords secret, family contracts or agreements, security for students, online predators and more!

There is also a “Microsoft family safety settings” page all about the settings you can manipulate on specific Microsoft systems (such as xBox, Zune and Windows) in order to keep your family safe.  Check out the 10 Things to Teach Kids page to find ways of bringing up important safety topics with kids.

SafeKids

This site is apparently a blog about Internet child safety.  A quick glance down the sidebar, however, shows that there is so much more offered!  I visited a link about child safety on the Information Highway, I tried a tool by Google called “Child Safe Search”, I reviewed sample contracts for families to sign and follow, and I took the safety quiz.  There is also a link to a funny video series called “The Webs.”  Well worth a look see.

This list is by no means exhaustive. If you know of another site that would also help in the area of child safety, please tells us in the comments area!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Visikid- Free Parental Internet Control Software to Monitor Your Child Online (14)
• Parental Controls – Safely Restrict Your Kids’ Computer Access [Mac] (5)
• Let Your Geeky Kids Play Online With KidZui (19)
• 5 Free Parental Control Software That Will Set Your Mind At Ease (16)
• 2 Addons to Add Internet Parental Control to Firefox (17)

However, we don’t care for content filtering programs which has been shown to potentially block educational or family-friendly material, and which can be a chore to configure. The compromise here is to use operating system monitoring software such as Visikid so that we can watch over what sites and applications he is using.

Visikid is free parental internet control software and works on Windows versions XP, Vista, and 7.

Installation is very simple, and by default, the Visikid monitor will run on your system’s startup. Upon first run, you will be prompted to create an account on Visikid.com, which is free, but has the downside of only displaying the current day’s activities. I’d like to note here that there is a paid subscription version that lets you keep track of your child’s activities over time. This costs $39 per year, or five dollars per month.

Next, you’ll create a user profile for your kids. On Windows, you should access your child’s profile, and login to the Visikid software to create the link.

A record of any sites visited or programs that were accessed under your child’s user session will be made available for viewing that same day on your Visikid.com dashboard. Well-known desktop applications and sites are divided into categories. The option is there for assigning categories such as “education” and “communication” to unknown sites.

Graphs and charts illustrate just how much time was spent on a particular site or application. This is a very good way to make sure that your kids are concentrating on homework, and not social-networking.

Of course, there is no substitute for direct parental supervision, but if you have to leave your child’s side, say, to go make dinner or corral the toddler, then programs like Visikid can act as your third-eye when you’re not available.

Some other good safety practices for kids on the Web are as follows:

• Users of the Mozilla Firefox browser are encouraged to install my three favorite Firefox security and privacy add-ons, as well as an alternate shell like KidsMenu, which I’ve previously reviewed. Please keep in mind that for many sites with kids’ games, you may have to add them to NoScript’s white list.
• Add some bookmarks to your kid’s browser toolbar leading to approved safe sites. One of my favorites for games is Orisinal, reviewed here.
• Teach your kids to only chat with and send messages to friends and family, and not to strangers or bullies.
• Conversely, teach your kids to only accept messages from friends and family, but never to open attachments without asking a parent first.
• Can’t stress this one enough: teach your children to not give out any personal information.

Here are some other MakeUseOf posts on monitoring your children online :

- Protect Your Kids Online With Free Norton OnlineFamily.
- 2 Addons to Add Internet Parental Control to Firefox.
- Let Your Geeky Kids Play Online With KidZui

Do our readers know of any similar free parental internet control apps worth looking into? How do you monitor your child’s activities and keep them safe? Give us some ideas in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Let Your Geeky Kids Play Online With KidZui (19)
• 5 Sites That Promote Internet Safety For Kids (14)
• 5 Free Parental Control Software That Will Set Your Mind At Ease (16)
• Restrict Windows and Web Access for Kids with KidsMenu (12)
• Parental Controls – Safely Restrict Your Kids’ Computer Access [Mac] (5)

When two kids drop over from our world into Pangaea during a full moon night, they don’t receive the welcoming they might expect.

In their constant battle for attention and affection, the toy souls have become to compete more and more violently, engaging each other with toy weapons, blunts and guns.

If they’re ever to return home again, these two children need to collect enough essences, magical crystals that are shattered across Pangaea. In their quest, they get caught on in the toy souls’ battles. Get ready to join their adventure.

Manga Fighter

Manga Fighter, by GamesCampus is set in the Pangaea toy world. With its non-violent character (temporarily disabling your opponents, instead of killing them), it’s mostly interesting for younger people.

Although the name of the game implies a manga-like style, this idea doesn’t bring it much further than the title and conceptual art. In its transition to 3D, the game took on a more cartoony style, with more visible western, than eastern influences.

Manga Fighter is a third-person online fighting game – an arena fighter, hack ‘n slash and shooter. This means that players are sustained in a smaller, rather circular environment, in which they engage each other.

There’s a notable difference in gameplay between Manga Fighter and other free online fighting games. The first concept that’s thrown out of the window is character equality. Where other games’ characters mostly differ in additional items and skills, players in Manga Fighter need to choose between characters mainly differing in basic attributes, like strength, force and speed.

Skills on the other hand can be activated by filling up the skill gauge, and will momentarily boost some of these attributes, by assigning special powers to the player.

The basic setting, added to the skills, makes up an interesting arena mix. Even though the game has a very slow pace and lacks the depth and challenge of many games in its genre, it’s a game that entertains, at least for a while.

There are several different levels, depicting different parts of the toy world. Enabled by the subject, there’s a wide variety and creativity present – so we’ve got urban environments, but also varieties on Ancient Egypt, a giant dollhouse and the magical gardens.

A Game For Kids

Due to various different factors, including the slow and accessible pace, the cartoony visuals and the non-violent setting, this is an online fighting game that’s not too interesting for a mature audience, but one I might recommend for kids.

This is a place where younger gamers could be able to obtain experience, and some feel for the shooting or arena genre. There used to be a great, nearly insurmountable difference between the less and more experienced players. Lately, GamesCampus has been adding a lot of extra features that help the new players remain on their feet, and close the distance to higher levels, thus making the game a lot more accessible, and also a lot less frustrating.

The pressure here isn’t as high as on most other online fighting games, and the community consists mostly of younger players. It’s one you might try, but if you’re looking for alternatives, be sure to check out The Top 3 Online Multiplayer Games For Youngsters.

What did you think of the game? Worth your while, or do you prefer other games? Tell us about it in the comments!

More technicalities can be found here, on the site’s help page.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Xiah Rebirth – Martial Arts Themed MMORPG (5)
• Top 3 Ways for Kids To Make Money Online (45)
• The Top 3 Online Multiplayer Games (MMO) For Youngsters (29)
• Quake Live – Free Online Shooting Game in Your Browser (22)
• Project Powder – Online Multiplayer Snowboarding Game (7)

Just like everything else she was only interested in it once or twice. So I have come to love the Internet for its ever changing content and have found several websites with preschool online games that my daughter visits daily and I am going to share them with you! Your kid will love you for it!

The first television show my daughter watched was on a channel we have in the United States called Noggin. Noggin has all the big shows like Dora The Explorer, The Backyardigans, The Wonder Pets and Lazy Town. For the really small ones you can run a program called Baby Smash on top of your browser to not let the baby change the page or mess with the web site. I wrote a post here about it.

There are loads more shows and they all have a mini-website built into Noggin. Each mini site contains lots of preschool online games and music as you can see below from Jack’s Big Music Show. You can see and listen to all this season’s music videos and there is a link to the last seasons videos as well.

Your kid (or you) can get lost on this page as well.

Next up on the same site is the Backyardigan’s mini-site which my daughter adores. There is all sorts of stuff, from video games to creative arts and crafts you can do at your home and even printables for parties and activities.

Next up to bat is the ever popular Sesame Street. Sesame Street has been around since I was a kid but we didn’t have an interactive website like this! Just like Noggin there are loads of games, videos and playlists. They also create a playlist for the day around a specific theme.

Below, the theme is “Guessing Day” others have been “Father’s Day” and “The Letter K”. You can get into the themed play list by hitting the green play button on the home screen after the flash intro plays. The playlist is made up of videos, games and more. If you have a really little one you will probably want to stick with the videos.

Each character has its own links. You can click on the Muppets link on the top to see the break down.

After clicking on any Muppet you will see a screen similar to the one for Elmo:

You can click on any of those links to videos, games or combo playlists all with the character of your choice!

What websites with preschool online games do you let your young ones play with? We would love to hear about them so my daughter will stop trying to find new ones on Google!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Roblox – A Cool Lego-Based Free Virtual World for Kids (22)
• 5 Websites To Keep Kids Busy & Happy (14)
• Top Educational Websites For Children That Are Fun (29)
• Top 3 Ways for Kids To Make Money Online (45)
• Top 10 Free Genealogy Websites to Find Ancestors (26)

However, algebra concepts insert “unknowns” into equations and formulas that can really throw many students for a loop. Solving an equation for a factor that appears to be on the “wrong side” of the equal sign can feel like a very strange and impossible premise for those students.

As usual, help is available on the Internet, and the following list are some of the best free algebra homework help websites that can make the process of learning algebra a whole lot easier.

MyAlgebra – A Free Algebra Problem Solver

A very simple and useful resource is the MyAlgebra online problem solver application.  While this isn’t the first place a student should go for help, because it simply provides the answer to the equation, it is an excellent website for students to check their work.

Students can work through their algebra problems, and when they’ve come up with a solution that they feel is correct, they can simply enter in the equation and click “Answer.” Of course, solving for equations isn’t the only thing the application can do – there is a long list of funcions in the drop-down list to choose from.

Obviously, the most common choice will be to “solve the equation,” and the nice thing about this online application is that it converts both the problem and the solution into the same sort of format that it would appear in the textbook.

Unfortunately, “show steps” isn’t really a legitimate option, as it takes you to a website for Bagatrix, where you can purchase Algebra solving software that provides step-by-step solutions. Regardless, as an answer-checker the free online app proves very useful.

Illuminations – Cool Algebra Activities and Lessons

Nothing is quite as frustrating for many students as trying to understand abstract concepts, and learning to do so by reading drab and boring textbooks that make you want to go to sleep. Luckily, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in the U.S. understands this problem and created a website called Illuminations that brings the subject (including algebra) to life for students.

The site includes high quality activities and lessons that cover all aspects of both math and algebra. Of all available free algebra homework help websites, this is definitely the one that’s the most fun and interesting. For lessons, you select grade levels and topics (one area is devoted to just algebra), and you get access to dozens of valuable lessons that teach important algebra concepts. However, my favorite part of the site is the “activities” area that offers some really high quality and valuable online applications that graphically show algebraic principles, such as this “pan balance” app that graphically displays what happens when you change different elements of equations.

Tutorvista – Free Lessons

While Tutorvista isn’t technically a free site, because the primary aim is to get parents to sign up their children for an online tutor, the website does offer an entire algebra help section with well formatted lessons that teach students about the many elements of algebra, from foundation principles all the way to the more advanced topics.

Of course, if you do need tutoring for your child, you can actually submit an assignment and for an average fee of $5, a tutor will actually send back the answer in a fully worked-out step-by-step solution. However, before you start dishing out your cash for any paid tutoring, make sure to check out the next free Algebra homework help website that actually does offer many tutoring services for free.

Algebra.com – Math Tutors Who Just Can’t Get Enough

Of course, the best place to get some free algebra tutoring is Algebra.com, an online community of mathematicians who are obsessed with the topic. You can turn their obsession into your child’s advantage by posting problems for the tutor community to answer. The website itself offers more lessons and information than probably any other algebra help website out there.

Just the algebra section includes pre-algebra, algebra I and algebra II – and of course there’s a quick and easy “Universal Simplifier and Solver” at the top that will either simplify or solve your algebra equations. At the top of the site, there’s a “Free Tutors” menu option that’ll take you to a section where you can either sign up to be a free tutor (a public service which gives you exposure for your tutoring business), or you can submit your own algebra questions to the tutors. There are almost a thousand active tutors – and the question/answer area is a huge community of fantastic tutors who are eager to help kids with their algebra problems.

Math.com – Interactive Algebra Help

Another valuable site filled with step-by-step instructions and lessons for students to learn the most important algebra concepts is Math.com. This site covers both the basics as well as advanced concepts under categories like “The Language of Algebra”, “Equations and Inequalities” and “Graphing Equations and Inequalities.”

The lessons at Math.com take students through an easy step-by-step “wizard,” and on each step there’s often a “show me” option students can click where the application offers examples or additional information that better explains a specific topic. It’s just like having a teacher available with instant answers to the typical questions that students often ask.

Drexel University  – The Math Forum

The Math Forum is a valuable public service offered by Drexel University that offers both students and teachers dozens of resources. Many of the resources are buried within internal links, but the Algebra Section alone offers classroom materials for teachers, Internet projects, public forums and even links to algebra software throughout the net.

The Math Forum is one of the largest math & algebra resources on the net, and if you can afford to donate it would be a valuable and worthy cause to contribute. Mathematics, and algebra in particular are critical skills for students to learn early on that can tremendously simplify their lives later on. Any free algebra homework help websites that exist on the Internet are very positive resources that should be promoted and applauded by everyone.

Do you know of any additional algebra resources for teachers, parents or students on the Internet? Share them in the comments section below.

Image credit: aussiegall

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!