The Adventures of a Home Educating Mom at CES
Hey, well I was going to try and tweet most of my adventures, but I couldn’t get that working well in my room or in the convention center. So, I shall blog. First of all, as I tweeted earlier, there was little or no swag from the first day. On the second day I actually scored some swag and great info for home educators and parents in general.
Another early learning favorite Knowledge Adventure, the makers of Jump*Start and Math Blaster was also there. They are expanding their format to Wii, DS & online games. That’s a good thing in my book! You can get more information at www.jumpstart.com. This will be available soon and will expand its offerings through the next year.
I stopped at the POGO.com booth and got some good info about their sites. The sites are free, and ad 
sponsored, but that means the ads are legit clickable banners (as opposed to spyware loaded on while you play a “free” game on some sites.) I think there is a pay option if you want to avoid the ads altogether. The Pogo folks gave me a Monopoly Deal card game. (Yay, more swag!)
One of the items I was happy to see was an invention by a mother of four from Massachusetts. iHearSafe safe volume earbuds, and headphones. These automatically keep the volume being pumped into your ears at a safe decibel level without sacrificing sound quality. (They gave me 2 sets of their earbuds! Score!!!)
I found the iHearSafe booth after I had talked to the Listen To Your Buds! folks, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) & Parents’ Choice Foundation. They are pushing public awareness of “Safe Listenin
g”.
Speaking of ear buds, and duds, there wer a few less than impressive showings that I thought I’d share. It seems that the new trend is going to be ear bud jewelry. Kinda like those charms for your phones – but they want you to buy new earbuds that have click on pieces. woo-stinkin-hoo. I was also less than impressed by the Princess Light Up mat. You step on it and it lights up…a little. Oh, and there are princesses on it-so you have to have it. ugh.
KidZui is a web browser for kids from Scholastic. It has pre-approved internet content, and the kids cannot exit it without a password. Go here for a full description.
ReMiSSION is a video game (rated TEEN) that HopeLabe distributes FREE to young people with cancer. According to research published in the medical journal Pediatrics, Re-Mission was shown to improve behavioral outcomes in adolescents and young adults with cancer. Go to www.re-mission.net.
Elf Island says “play games-do good”. As kids play the games and achieve goals, they earn money for organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Plant-It, WildAid, etc.
“Play Games. Do Good.TM This simple mantra is the heart of Elf Island, the first-ever tween virtual world to translate online gaming into tangible real world results.
Leading an emerging category coined Gaming for Good,TM Elf Island weaves real world nonprofit projects into a lush, interactive virtual environment through entertaining game-play, social interaction and storytelling to encourage the power of fun.”
when I do I will send it to those who are interested.)Finally, I know all the kids will hate this, but the folks that bring SafeEyes to your kids computers are now bringing SafeEyes to your iPod.
Well, I hope you enjoy checking out these sites and maybe even find something helpful.
Thanks for reading!
Sophia
Hi! I could have sworn I have been to the site prior to however right after browsing through a few of the content I realized it really is fresh to me. Anyways, I’m absolutely happy I located it and I will be book-marking and checking returning frequently!
Ppl like you get all the brains. I just get to say tanhks for he answer.