07/16/98

Online Playgrounds

Today's tour includes some of the most popular kid sites on the Net. These online playgrounds host millions of kids each week who gather to play games, chat, meet e-pals and generally have fun. After all, it's summer and for most of us that means no school and plenty of free time.

Bonus.com

Bonus.com has created a protected environment for kids by taking control of the browser window and eliminating all links to the rest of the Web. Their NetScooter software hides your browser' s control icons, replacing it with their own buttons to move forward, backward, print, and save a favorite link. As a veteran surfer, I find this mildly irritating, but I can appreciate their good intentions. What you get is more than 650 Java games and over 1400 fun activities. Their most popular game is Battlefield, a multi-player board game that can host up to 1,000 players at once. Registration is optional, but if you do register you can save your game scores and rank.

FreeZone

FreeZone's most popular features are the free home page construction kit, monitored chat rooms (both open chats and those devoted to topics such as Music & Movies or Homework Help) and their e-pal program. Other recommended activities are answering the weekly KIDecision question, reading the weekly kid-written CurioZine or becoming a NewzFlash reporter. But unregistered users can only look around. In order to participate, you must register. And, as you can see, interaction is key here. FreeZone has done an excellent job of building an online community for the eight to twelve set.

Headbone Zone

Headbone has separate moderated chat rooms for Kids and Teens, as well as a combination chat room/word game called Sometimes Y. As with FreeZone, unregistered users have limited ability to join in the fun. Once registered, not only can you join in the chats, but you can also sign up for a free email account. This kid-safe email account allows parents to control incoming mail. You can choose to allow all incoming mail, only mail from certain (family and friends) email addresses, or to block email from specific addresses. Pretty slick, huh? Other recommended features are the educational games — which I've written about many times before.

Kidscom

For the youngest surfers, Kidscom offers Mousers: a collection of Shockwave and Java-based games. Chatters will like the Graffiti Wall Chats; one for eleven and younger, another for twelve and older. On both walls, foul language is controlled by a computer-based censor. The younger chat also has a human monitor during specified hours. Also popular is the international Key Pal program, which requires signed parental permission. A unique activity is Voice to the World, which encourages kids to send messages to prime ministers and presidents on issues such as AIDS research, the environment, and world hunger.

MaMaMedia

This very creative site has a barrelful of fun, noisy, interactive activities, but I was frequently frustrated by slow loading pages. Top hits are Stomps and Stamps (create a noisy drawing), DigSig (design an animated self-portrait) and Parties (surf the Web with a theme). You will need to register if you want to save your digital signature and favorite surfing links.

The following links are either new discoveries or sites that didn't make it into my newspaper column because of space contraints. Enjoy!

CyberKids

Kids' Space

Nickelodeon