Blog entry February 2011

The Moms With Apps developer group has created a new iOS app available in the iTunes App Store. Moms With Apps is a catalog of great children's and family-friendly apps.  Parents and educators can search by educational category and age groups to discover and learn about new apps and developers. Apple has featured this app in iTunes at #1 in the Education section's New and Noteworthy list.  Mobicip is a long standing member of Moms With Apps and is featured in the new app under, App > Parents > Education > Mobicip Safe Browser.  The MomsWithApps new app is free and you can download it here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moms-with-apps/id416039568?mt=8

To support MWA App Friday initiative, Mobicip is offering 10% off their premium service this App Friday. To get more information, visit http://momswithapps.com/2011/02/18/app-friday-mixeroo-ants-and-gunther/ and scroll to "SURF SAFELY."

Mobicip Safe Browser has been selected as a finalist in the 2011 About.com Reader's Choice awards in the Best iPad Browser category. Based on the nominations About.com received, Mobicip Safe Browser has made it onto the final ballot. Between now and March 8, About.com readers will be voting for their favorite iPad Browser, and About.com will announce the winner on March 15.

To vote for Mobicip Safe Browser, visit slide #8 and click "Safe Bowser" - http://browsers.about.com/od/allaboutwebbrowsers/ss/2011-readers-choice-awards-web-browsers-voting_8.htm

This best-selling Safe Browser for the iPad is based on a path-breaking dynamic cloud content filtering engine, designed to provide a safe, secure and educational Internet for families and school-age children anytime anywhere. Mobicip's dynamic content filtering includes a new YouTube filter for parents and educators to ensure their children’s Internet safety while they are on one of the most popular sites on the web.
 

Suren Ramasubbu, co-founder and CEO of Mobicip.com, will be leading a panel discussion on mobile learning at the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) conference in Austin, Texas. His co-panelists are from Comal ISD and Jim Ned CISD.  The discussion will be held on Thursday, Feb 10, 2:00 to 3:30 PM in 19B.  We are happy to share the discussion description and direct link on the Mobicip blog: http://m.core-apps.com/tcea2011/events/7594de645fc09ef6833ea1a76692b51e. 

Discussion Topic:  Mobile Learning Using the iPod touch? In Hindsight
Description:  The iPod touch is increasingly being adopted as a mobile learning device by schools. In this discussion, the panel will talk about the challenges faced from different perspectives - leadership, budget, policy, deployment, device management, classroom use, and results - based on the experience from two different school districts' points of view.

At TCEA, in Austin, Texas, attendees can learn from knowledgeable presenters and highly regarded educational technology experts in the country. TCEA has something for every educator who wants to maximize his/her skills and learn more about technology integration in the classroom. More than 400 concurrent sessions and workshops will be presented on subjects from the basics to industry-leading trends and hot topics.
 

Thousand Oaks, CA - Mobicip.com, the leading Internet safety and parental control service for mobile devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, now offers a YouTube filter for parents and educators to ensure their children's safety when they access videos on the popular site. The YouTube filter is a feature of the Mobicip Safe Browser app, which is available for download from the Apple App Store.

The Internet is evolving quickly and user-generated content is taking prime of place, especially on YouTube. Keeping children safe is a challenge when the content is updated dynamically and inappropriate videos can be displayed or accessed by chance. It is neither sufficient nor fair to shield YouTube completely from young users. Mobicip’s intelligent real-time analysis engine now has the ability to separate and analyze YouTube content dynamically and block only the objectionable ones for a specified age-level. This is accomplished with no noticeable slowdown or impact on the performance of the mobile device since Mobicip is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution.

“At Mobicip, we review customer feedback constantly and try to identify common themes,” says Suren Ramasubbu, co-founder and CEO of Mobicip.com and a father of two. “While Mobicip has always filtered YouTube, it was being filtered just like a regular website. Parents and educators want to block only objectionable videos and not the entire YouTube site or the entire page that contains one bad video. A true YouTube filter is a huge challenge because it can be done only by analyzing the videos dynamically, and that is Mobicip’s distinct advantage,” says Ramasubbu. “A YouTube filter was highly sought after by Mobicip's users, and we are happy to make it available for parents and educators as yet another tool to keep children safe online.”

Visit the Mobicip blog or Mobicip YouTube Channel to learn How To Setup YouTube Filtering Using Mobicip on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Mobicip’s Safe Browser app is available on the iPhone App Store, and the Premium subscription can be purchased at www.mobicip.com. The full press release is available at www.mobicip.com/press.

About Mobicip’s Web Filtering and Dynamic Parental Control Software
Mobicip is the most popular content filtering solution available on the App Store. The best-selling Mobicip Safe Browser app has been consistently rated among top paid apps, downloaded and used by tens of thousands of parents and several K-12 schools and school districts in the US, and was recently recognized by the 2010 Parents’ Choice Awards as a Top Mobile App. Mobicip's dynamic content filtering includes a new YouTube filter for parents and educators to ensure their children’s Internet safety while they are on one of the most popular sites on the web. In addition to enabling online learning by supporting iOS-based devices, Mobicip partners with schools like Comal ISD to create custom app solutions that further enable online learning.  Learn more at www.mobicip.com.
 

OurBlook published an interview with Lorrie Thomas about Online Education.  Thomas shares interesting opinions and feedback regarding the advantages and disadvantages of Online Education.  Thomas is a writer, educator, speaker and CEO of Web Marketing Therapy. We are happy to feature a section of the article on our blog.  To read the complete article, please visit OurBlook: http://www.ourblook.com/Future-of-Education/Lorrie-Thomas-on-Online-Education.html

Are the advantages and disadvantages any different at the K-12 level?
LT: The advantages and disadvantages of a college to elementary/teen level are different for teachers and students. The facilitated learning approach still holds, however, online teaching for young students requires parent and teacher involvement. I am finding that web classes are more for adults, and elementary schools are doing more with mobile devices like iPad, iPod Touch and iPods. Advantage: Younger learners are fast to adopt the technology where a lot of adults can't handle the new tools. Biggest disadvantage is web security ... adults can navigate the web, where younger learners can accidentally hit sites that are inappropriate. K-12 schools use www.Mobicip.com, the No. 1 web security technology to enable web learning. This allows them to still view YouTube videos, but not hit content that is not age-appropriate.

The city of Detroit may have to close half its public schools and see an average class size of 62 students in its high schools. Would online education be a wise alternative to ponder here? Can you teach more students at a time effectively with online than the traditional teacher in the room method?
LT: Online education for young students requires parental supervision and MUST have safety technology like www.mobicip.com to safely enable online learning. I feel for the teachers and students in Detroit, however, I see an opportunity to pioneer larger classes with new education styles. I envision creative classrooms where there is more group work (a critical skill for young folks to have) and I see distance educators steaming in video classes that can be taught in assemblies. This is a beast of a shift, but can be done if there is a strategy in place to manage it.