Family, Social Tech

How To Be Grandparents Virtually In A Digital World

10 Sep

Are you a virtual grandparent? With COVID-19 safety precautions pushing communications online, it’s important to connect with family and friends using technology to avoid feelings of isolation and sadness. Fortunately, Caribu has helped bridge the gap for many families. Caribu provides a meaningful tool for grandparents to connect with their grandchildren at a safe social distance. With each Caribu video-call, grandparents and grandchildren can pick books to read, pages to color, and games to play in an interactive playdate. It’s a magical way to stay in touch and share in the everyday lives of family near and far.

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Family, Social Tech

How To Make Remote Learning Work For Your Children

01 Sep

When schools and day cares shut down in March, no one thought it would last more than a few months. But in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic is nowhere near under control. That makes in-person schooling an iffy proposition in many parts of the country. Even if your school plans to have students on campus for at least part of the school year, it’s wise to prepare for repeated shutdowns, closures, or quarantines when children, teachers, and staff test positive for COVID-19. Remote learning is here to stay, so we spoke to several ed tech experts about identifying possible obstacles and aiming for reasonable goals.

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Literacy, Social Tech

Teachers: Bring The Magic Of Reading To Your Virtual Classroom With Caribu’s New Web-Based Platform

15 Aug

This fall, there is a new solution for teachers to keep students engaged during reading activities. Caribu is excited to announce the launch of its new web platform that allows you to read children’s books page-by-page with your students while you teach classes online. With Caribu, you can build a culture of reading in your classroom even during this time of social distancing. Caribu’s new web-based platform will allow you to open and read books on your computer as you teach lessons with Zoom, Google Hangouts, and other video calling platforms. This makes it simple to share read alouds, facilitate guided reading, and have book discussions with groups of children large and small.

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Social Tech

Top Benefits Of Video Chatting For Seniors

31 Jul

For older adults who are separated from friends and family by distance, video chatting provides a convenient way to stay connected any time, any place. Video calling has several benefits over traditional phone calls. Seniors can see the faces of grandkids and other family members instead of just hearing their voices, making communication more personal and interactive. Video chatting also allows family members to check in on their senior loved ones and see how they are doing, which is especially important if they cannot visit often.

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COVID-19, Social Tech

I Was A Screen Time Expert. Then The Coronavirus Happened.

29 Jul

What I’ve come to realize with clarity in these dark, anxious times is that so many of our problems “with technology” don’t emanate from the screens that our children are glued to but from the disruption and alienation that creeps into our own relationships with ourselves and others as we allow our experiences and tough emotions to be mediated, numbed out, blurred, by media. The phone is like a fentanyl lollipop; yes, it’s possible to abuse, but our pain, and the massive pain of the world driving us to it, is arguably the real problem.

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Family, Holidays, Social Tech

3 Tips for Helping Seniors Stay Connected This Fourth Of July: Because No One Should Be Limited By Technology

04 Jul

It’s Fourth of July weekend, and people across the country are planning virtual fun for the holiday. Many families this year are choosing to avoid in-person socializing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those who are older and more vulnerable. Despite the distance, family members can still log in to apps like Caribu and connect with relatives through books and activities in a video-call.

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Family, Social Tech

100 Military Kids Receive Sleep Kits With Caribu

24 May

On May 1st, one hundred kids were selected by Blue Star Families and Sleep Number to receive a Sleep Kit. The Sleep Kits include a Sleep Number Kids™ pillow, twin protection pad, twin sheets, ZZZ Bear bundle, Sesame Street military kid transition activity book, and a lifetime subscription to the Caribu reading app—valued at $650.

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COVID-19, Family, Social Tech

Agonizing Over Screen Time? Follow The Three C’s

14 Apr

Certainly, existing screen time recommendations (no screen time for children under 18 months and less than one hour of daily high-quality programming for 2- to 5-year-olds) don’t really account for the reality of how we use media. Sure, our children use screens to watch cartoons, but they also need them to connect with teachers, classmates and grandparents.

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