Where My Students Play Online....

Last week, I asked my previous students (Jr. High age) what some of their favorite online sites are, I then told them they had to be family friendly sites, so that I could review them myself and share them with others.

So where do kids hang out online other than Facebook and MySpace (I told them those two didn't count, because those two were already known about)?

After some discussion over lunch, they agreed on two sites in particular that they really like spending time on.

The first site is called Poptropica.com, I talked about it a little in my last blog. The site is free, but there is also a paid membership that offers more access to the offerings of the site. Check out this brief video on Poptropica...



So, while you are exploring the many islands of Poptropica, collecting different items needed in a game or competing with others, you can also chat with other Poptropicans. However, what I really like about the chatting aspect of Poptropica, is that, "Poptropica uses a pre-scripted chat system. This means that users are provided with question and answer options to choose from in order to communicate with each other. There is purposely no free chat in Poptropica in order to make our virtual world as safe as possible for kids." In my book, the pre-scripted chat system gets two thumbs up from this mom.

What was the other site the kids liked? The boys (mostly) really like hanging out on PlayCrafter.com. What is PlayCrafter? This site allows you to not only play games that others have created, but it allows you to create your own flash based games to share with others. Watch this video to get an idea of how it works...



PlayCrafter.com is a free site, like Poptropica, and like Poptropica, there is also a premium version membership that you can purchase to get more out of the site. The free membership allows you to play the games, chat (although I'm not sure how their chatting works, I couldn't figure out how to access that option), save high scores, save games you are working on and publish games with up to 10 levels.

I would visit both sites with your child, to determine the safety issues or see them in action yourself, before letting your child have free reign on either site. Poptropica does not link to outside sites, but PlayCrafter does, and you may or may not want your child to visit the outside sites (that's why it's always best to explore new sites together, first).

Have fun exploring!!