CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Families are starting school next week and a lot of kids will be learning virtually at home. Many parents also working from home and supervising that online activity is going to be challenging.
“I am as ready as I am going to be,” said Shalan Fry, a mom of two girls.
Fry is taking online learning in Union County seriously. Fry set up a classroom at home. The kids are in middle school and high school and there will be a lot of screen time, more so than usual for that age. It’s a concern for her and other parents who may be distracted with their own work at home schedule.
“I lock it down, and we are talking about adding another layer, an app called Bark as an extra measure of safety,” she said. Bark is a popular app that monitors where kids go and what comes and goes on phones and computers.
So what else is out there if you want to spend some time upgrading your computer security? There are lots of choices. Some are free and some you can buy.
Tech insiders like a program called Qustodio. It has a free version and you can upgrade. The upgrades can offer more like YouTube monitoring and social media time. The premium package is $124 a year which is only $10 a month.
Wondershare is another good monitoring app. It covers 30 devices on the account and will block inappropriate photos and text messages.
Kid Logger will even monitor the keystrokes on the computer. The cheap version of Kid Logger is $29 a year and the most expensive pro version is only $89 so that’s $7 a month for an additional peace of mind.
Parents might already have adequate security without buying anything. However; now is the time to revisit what you must see if you need to add more security or monitoring.