We have all heard of active video games by now. Guitar Hero started the craze, to the tune of $1 billion in sales but Nintendo’s Wii has expanded the genre. Players of all ages can play baseball, fish, box, bowl and even do yoga. These games are much more active than traditional games but are they really any better, health wise? Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston have been wondering the same thing. Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is game where players use a special mat and dance to prompts. DDR has been used successfully in schools, homes and afterschool programs. In order to provide cardio related benefits, new games have to raise heart rates enough to burn calories, so arm and wrist movements are not enough. One positive of these games is the lack of food commercials and the inability to eat and play at the same time. But parents are cautioned that some games have players act out extremely violent actions, in realistic ways. One game on Wii has actual stabbing and punching instead of button presses, so parents need to exercise caution when choosing games.

Link to article go-go_games.html

Link to studies on Video game violence and kids behavior violence.asp

Back in 1984 under the Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act, US cable companies had to fund local organizations to provide training and access to media technology and cable distribution on the local cable systems. This policy was intended to help communities address local concerns or interest and produce community initiated programming. Public Access started out with cable television but many stations have branch out into radio and the internet. (source Wikipedia)

To read about my visit to my local station and interview with the executive director click Public Access

I took my kids and they were excited by the idea that they could create their own programs. My daughter wants to talk about her favorite books and movies. While my son wants to read an original story that he wrote. That is the great thing about this type of media you can create your own original programing. Many parents complain about the quality of what is available for their kids, now you can do something about it. Public Access stations provide training to members of the community and will help you produce your ideas. This would be a great project for teens, families and especially homeschooling families. I will be checking out the training schedule so that I can learn more about the process and who knows maybe a program is in my future.

PBS is known for their great programs for kids and this website is no different. It is an easy to use, well laid out site for parents and kids. They break down media categories into groups like; TV & Movies, Video Games, Computers and Advertising. These categories contain sub-headings for Preschoolers, Grade schoolers, Pre-teens and Teens. They also have Milestones, which gives age by age tips on what parents can do to make kids more media savvy. There are also articles and information for parents which cover various topics like; Creating with Media, TV Viewers guide, Sorting out Scientific Studies and more. They even have an IM, TXT lexicon and Media glossary. All in all a fun and informative site that is great for parents just learning abouthttp://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/images/art-videogames-sml.jpg media and it’s influence on our kids. Here is the site link. PBS Media

I started this blog as a way to help parents, like myself, raise children who are media savvy. In today’s world we are innundated by media on a daily basis. As adults we are able to filter out and evaluate this information, to some extent. But do our children have the tools necessary to critically analyze all of the media that they are expose to? What are these tools and how can we, as parents guide them through this process? These are the questions I will strive to answer with this blog. I hope that this will be a fun and informative process for all of us, thanks for coming along for the ride.