Apps

An eight-week study in the United Kingdom found that teens who wore a Fitbit Charge wristband became bored with it after about four weeks, and overall said they felt less confident about exercising and were discouraged from doing it, researchers reported in the American Journal of Health Education. Researchers also said that interacting and making progress comparisons with peers, rather than just working on their own with the technology, were better motivators for most of the teens in the study.

Instagram reports that users younger than 25 spend more than 32 minutes daily on the platform, and those 25 and older are active for more than 24 minutes daily. Both totals outpace figures from Snapchat, which stated in February that users under 25 spend more than 30 minutes daily on the platform, while users 25 and older spend about 20 minutes daily. If your children use both, they could be spending an hour a day on these apps.

As you may have observed with your own teens, Facebook and Twitter are fading and Snapchat is the app of choice these days. Even if you are familiar with Snapchat, you may need to get up to speed on a new feature called Snap Map. The feature lets users see where Snaps (messages or pictures) are being composed from. If users want to keep that information private (versus letting the whole world know where they are), users must choose Ghost Mode. Need more information on how to set up Ghost Mode and Snap Map? See Talk to your teen about Snapchat Ghost Mode on the USA Today site.

As you may have observed with your own teens, Facebook and Twitter are fading and Snapchat is the app of choice these days. Even if you are familiar with Snapchat, you may need to get up to speed on a new feature called Snap Map. The feature lets users see where Snaps (messages or pictures) are being composed from. If users want to keep that information private (versus letting the whole world know where they are), users must choose Ghost Mode. Need more information on how to set up Ghost Mode and Snap Map? See Talk to your teen about Snapchat Ghost Mode on the USA Today site.

School districts across the country are using machine translation, human translation, or some combination of both to help bridge the barriers for English-language learners. Some districts are using Google's Website Translator plug-in for translations on anything from homework worksheets to school lunch menus, while others have adopted mobile apps such as TalkingPoints to translate text messages, allowing non-English speaking parents to communicate with teachers in more than 20 languages.

School districts across the country are using machine translation, human translation, or some combination of both to help bridge the barriers for English-language learners. Some districts are using Google's Website Translator plug-in for translations on anything from homework worksheets to school lunch menus, while others have adopted mobile apps such as TalkingPoints to translate text messages, allowing non-English speaking parents to communicate with teachers in more than 20 languages.

Keeping in line with many popular media including books and television programs, apps for kids are also beginning to reflect diversity. Toca Boca is one of the leading children’s app developers and its goal is that "no kid should ever feel excluded by Toca Boca." In Toca Life: School, kids interact with 32 characters, representing different races, ages, backgrounds and physical abilities. The app allows kids to move the characters in and out of the five scenes to act out stories set in a school location. In each scene, players will find a wheelchair, so that any character can be placed there to tell a story. Biracial families show up in apps such as Goldilocks and Little Bear from Nosy Crow. Stereotypes as quashed in apps like Fox & Sheep's Little Farmers - Tractors, Harvesters & Farm Animals for Kids where both males and females appear driving the big machinery.