WatchMeGrow
Quick Login
|
Big Mother: Komal Bains keeps a watchful eye on her 4-year-old daughter at kindergarten via streaming Internet video
By Ramin Setoodeh
Newsweek
Sept. 27 issue - After Komal Bains, 32, drops off her 4-year-old, Anoop, at kindergarten, she hurries home to a computer. But Bains isn't checking e-mail-she watches images from a Webcam that shows her daughter pledging allegiance in the morning, working
on crafts later in the day, clinging to the teacher at recess and napping in the afternoon. "I want to see if she's doing well," says Bains, a pharmacy manager from Turlock, Calif. The other students in class hardly notice the school's cameras-about the size of an index finger-embedded in ceilings and walls. But Anoop was a little worried at first: "What happens when I'm in the bathroom?" she asked. "Nobody can see you in there," Bains assured her.
Until now, Web cameras for parents have been restricted mostly to day-care centers. That's changing as companies like WatchMeGrow (watchmegrow.com) wire up elite grade schools like Anoop's TLC Education Academy. The technology extends not
just to Web cameras but to other Internet services that help busy parents monitor their kids' academic progress, well-being and safety.
What's the score? In response to parents' growing anxiety over their kids' grades, many teachers, like Tony Vincent at Willowdale Elementary in Omaha, Neb., have started posting quiz and homework grades online. "I'm finding myself at parent-teacher
conferences where parents know more about what's going on than I do," says Vincent, who also started a class blog, The Daily Planet, written by a different student each day.
Whiz kid or wanderer? Attendance records are another big concern, so some school districts-like Township High School District 211 in Illinois-have started uploading them to the Internet. In the past, ditchers used "friends, uncles, aunts to call in
for them," says Charlie Peterson, the district's director of technology services. Now parents can check the record from work-and ground truants when they get home.
Lunch crunch. Not long ago, Meg Ormiston ordered a term's worth of pizza, bagels and hot dogs for her two boys at Concord Elementary in Darien, Ill., via the district's Web site. The technology helps her make sure the kids' lunch money is actually
spent on lunch-and that her sons don't get stuck with sandwiches they won't eat. They dislike anything with "green stuff" (i.e., veggies), she explains.
Track ' em down. If your school isn't yet wired, you can still check on your child's whereabouts with a GPS locator.
Wherify Wireless (wherify.com) offers a wristwatch that allows parents to track kids' location within feet via the Internet. Log on to the site and a satellite map pops up-in some cases showing a photo of the building where your child is situated. By the end of the year, the company also plans to roll out cell phones with tracking capabilities.
Such assistance is invaluable for working parents, who often lose track of each other, not just the kids. Recently Bains wasn't sure if her husband had remembered to pick up their daughter. "I was trying to page him," she says. Instead of driving to the school, she decided, "I'll sit and watch." Sure enough, she saw him via Webcam at the classroom door-which put her fears, and car keys, to rest.
|
|
|
