#totsmart

YouTube, is my favorite destination for anything and everything under the sun. Be it entertainment, information, general awareness or history, it has got everything. I am a fan, period!

Now since I am a parent, I also see lot of content at Youtube which is useful for my kid. In fact I encourage my child to use Youtube. Over the past few months I have seen my daughter get pretty comfortable with it and now she is like a 'child-pro' when it comes to using Youtube. However, I have also observed several things with Youtube which don't make me too happy. I definitely wish for a Kid's version of Youtube.

I would recommend other parents to watch out for the below mentioned things if they expose their children to the treasure trove called Youtube!

 1. Inappropriate content

For every video meant for children, Youtube has tonnes of videos which are not suitable for them. Children are a curious lot, which makes them particularly receptive to lot of unwanted content. Constant Parents' supervision is the only full proof way of avoiding inappropriate content, like Porn or Violence.

 2. Interlinked videos

Although search results & video recommendations are generally in kids genre, handful of recommendations end up being from irrelevant genres as well. Again in case of unsupervised usage, all the child needs is one bad recommendation to get sucked into the vast world of undesired videos.

 3. Content quality

Often kids are watching cartoons and we as parents feel Ok. But there are numerous instances when the content of these cartoons is questionable. It confuses kids. This one time, my daughter started getting too attracted towards Monsters (commonly referred in the US for pre-school teachings), she would try to draw them everywhere. Her teacher called it out and asked me to check what she was getting exposed to. It wasnt a big incidence, but lack of active monitoring could end up confusing your kid about what is right-wrong, good-bad etc.

 4. When to stop?

Even, if the kids are watching just the right content, once they start liking it on Youtube they want to see it all the time. Before you realize it becomes part of their routine. No food unless you give them Youtube etc. Because Youtube doesn't tell them - we are done, it is time to stop.

 5. Ads and the journey outside youtube

Ads on Youtube are also pretty troublesome. Unless the parent is sitting next to the kid, they are extremely prone to getting lost in the world of internet after clicking on an ad. What follows is a series of hap-hazard clicks and reinitiating the Youtube app on tablet. Although my daughter learned how to cancel the ad popups and she is also pretty ok to restart the app, but still ads are nuisance we could do without when it comes to children.  

Youtube is a necessity in today's digital world and has numerous benefits. However, I would love to see a kid's version of Youtube (by Youtube or some other education company) coming out sometime soon to address these points.

For all its goodness, YouTube has some obvious flaws when it comes to young kids. This is where our specialized application fills the gap.

- Prasad Ajinkya - Parent, blogger, gamer, coder & startup guy.

Enter Pedron... 

It is designed to ensure kids get access to only select videos (& other content) that are appropriate for them to view. Parents can also set a time limit, to manage child's digital play time. As the videos are being carefully selected keeping the age of the kids in mind, the chances of all the possibilities stated above is completely eliminated. Besides Videos child can also play educational games within Pedron and it auto adjusts itself depending on child's performance and interests.

Personalized Learning Peaceful Parenting

As parents we want our children to scale the heights of professional success, not only that, deep down we desire them to become world class. We try to provide them with the best facilities  resources at our disposable and hope they will make it big some day. Like the pyramid below, we desire our kids to climb up the ladder and reach the top to be successful. Which obviously means we desire them to be better than all their peers. 

However, we are totally oblivious to the fact that we are asking our kids to learn absolutely the same thing as every other kid in the class or every other kid in the same grade across the country! In this  case, rising up the chain becomes a question of individual brilliance vs. purposeful thought out training.  

Wouldn't it be better to have a trainer who would be with your kid all the time. Not as a class teacher but as a playful companion at home. One who would actually teach your kid by disguising it as play time. One who would know his/her understanding & interest areas instantly and would ensure modification of the learning plan in real time.  

Pedron App is such a companion

What is Pedron?

Pedron is a free Mobile App which acts as a personal learning companion for your kid at home. It allows your kid to have fun by playing games and watching videos. While it monitors your child's progress, it automatically adjusts the presented content to ensure maximum understanding and deep focus on areas of interest for your kid.

What does Pedron do?

Plays games with kids

Shows videos  to kids

Personalizes content for each kid

Shares child's performance report with parents and teachers

Who can use Pedron?

Pedron mobile app is designed for children at Pre-Primary level. It will be extended to serve students at the Primary level  as well by the end of 2016.

Why should Parent's encourage use of Pedron?

Personalized learning is a luxury Parents didn't have when they were growing up. It is a reality today. We must encourage our children to reap the benefits. 

Pedron helps parents identify the following for their kids

Strength areas

Improvement areas

Comparative performance vs kids in similar age group

Secure content - Most of the parents allow their kids to view videos through Youtube. This is generally supervised by parents else kids are prone to consuming content not meant for them. With Pedron this problem gets addressed as well, since all the content is designed specifically for kids.

Pedron will be launching kid safe mode very soon. Through which kids wont be able to navigate out of the secure Pedron environment unless the parent allows it.

Pedron is not

A substitute to classroom teaching, it is a supplementary fun learning tool

Designed for senior classes yet

How to get Pedron? 

Visit Totsmart site or click on the links below

Apple App Store

Google Play Store

Special inaugural offer

The title may be a little too strong, but with every passing day we are inching closer to it. If we don’t embrace the change, flush out the redundant, be relevant – it’s going to collapse. The Education System that is.

A recent article in Guardian UK by well known Professor Sugata Mitra titled “Advent of Google means we must rethink our approach to education” illustrates the point beautifully. I fully agree with the problem but not so much with the solution though.  May be because I see it from a developing country/livelihood earning perspective & he sees it from a learning/educated class’ perspective.

Nevertheless, I really liked the way Mitra articulates the problem. Romantic attachment vs Relevance. Some snippets from the article are given below.

Would a person with good handwriting, spelling and grammar and instant recall of multiplication tables be considered a better candidate for a job than, say, one who knows how to configure a peer-to-peer network of devices, set up an organisation-wide Google calendar and find out where the most reliable sources of venture capital are, I wonder? The former set of skills are taught in schools, the latter are not.

We have a romantic attachment to skills from the past. Longhand multiplication of numbers using paper and pencil is considered a worthy intellectual achievement. Using a mobile phone to multiply is not. But to the people who invented it, longhand multiplication was just a convenient technology. I don’t think they attached any other emotions to it. We do, and it is still taught as a celebration of the human intellect. The algorithms that make Google possible are not taught to children. Instead, they are told: “Google is full of junk.”

In school examinations, learners must reproduce facts from memory, solve problems using their minds and paper alone. They must not talk to anyone or look at anyone else’s work. They must not use any educational resources, certainly not the internet. When they complete their schooling and start a job, they are told to solve problems in groups, through meetings, using every resource they can think of. They are rewarded for solving problems this way – for not using the methods they were taught in school. The curriculum lists things that children must learn. There is no list stating why these things are important. A child being taught the history of Vikings in England says to me: “We could have found out all that in five minutes if we ever needed to.”

~ ~ ~

Methods from centuries ago may seem romantic, but they do get obsolete and need to be replaced. The brain remembers good things from the past and creates a pleasant memory of the “good old days”. It forgets the rest. It is dangerous to build a present using vague memories of the good old days.

Any standard room in a Holiday Inn is better than the best facilities in an emperor’s room in the 15th century. Air conditioning, hot and cold running water, toilets that flush, TV and the internet. The middle class lives better today than any emperor ever did. Going back to horse-drawn vehicles is not the solution to our traffic problems and pollution. Beating children into submission will not solve the problem of educational disengagement.

If examinations challenge learners to solve problems the way they are solved in real life today, the educational system will change for ever. It is a small policy change that is required. Allow the use of the internet and collaboration during an examination.

If we did that to exams, the curriculum would have to be different. We would not need to emphasise facts or figures or dates. The curriculum would have to become questions that have strange and interesting answers. “Where did language come from?”, “Why were the pyramids built?”, “Is life on Earth sustainable?”, “What is the purpose of theatre?” Questions that engage learners in a world of unknowns. Questions that will occupy their minds through their waking hours and sometimes their dreams.

Teaching in an environment where the internet and discussion are allowed in exams would be different. The ability to find things out quickly and accurately would become the predominant skill. The ability to discriminate between alternatives, then put facts together to solve problems would be critical. That’s a skill that future employers would admire immensely.

Imagining the end state (even though it is a process) in my head where kids learn things that matter, I am reminded of a poem I had read long time back and searched leveraging some of the skills Mitra explains.

Embrace the Change  ~~~

I changed the way the story ends

I changed the goals and sights I’d see I changed everything that made me me

I changed my mind I changed direction I changed how I viewed my reflection I changed right back to how I began Exactly the same but a completely changed man

By – Flying Lemming