Wednesday, December 24, 2014

How to setup an Amazon Kindle for children – Pocket-lint.com

Amazon’s Kindle HAS Established itself as a leading Reading Device and Where You’ll have reading, hopefully you’ll have the eager children.

Although the real books, on paper, as well as using public libraries, Should be somethingthat all children experience, there’s no denying That a Kindle HAS Something to victims.

But a Kindle device, hooked into an Amazon account, offers a great deal of connectivity That you probably do not want your child to’ll have.

There’s a web browser, for Starters , as well as, Potentially, your Amazon account through Which They can buy books with wanton abandonment.

Whether you’re buying a new Kindle Specifically for a child, or letting them use one you Already Have, here’s What You Need to Consider When Setting-Up a Kindle for your kids. Here we’re talking about Specifically Kindle ebook readers, rather than Fire tablets, although in many cases, Samma information Applies.



Accountability Decisions

A Kindle Needs to be registered to an Amazon account.

If you ‘re getting a new Kindle Specifically for a child, then you Need to Decide Whether you’re going have it linked to Their own Amazon account, or to your account.

If the child / Kindle’s .its own account, then That account needs an email address, as well as a payment method. You do not want to hand over your credit card, so using a pre-paid card to setup the Amazon account is an option.

usingthis Means, You Can Have A Small value for some initial book purchases without having to worry about them emptying your bank account. You Can Always Top Up That pre-paid card for future purchases.

If you opt to Have the Kindle on your account (s Have a childs Use Your Kindle), then you’ll’ll have to make sure you use Parental Controls to ENSURE They do not spend on your account, Or use the Freetime function.

Parental Controls

Kindle HAS plenty of Parental Controls, Which is good place to start. If you ‘re giving your child a Kindle, you can opt to close off the major access points to the Internet: Web browser, the Kindle Store and Cloud.

Each of These can be disabled, with Parental Controls gettin’ password protection. That Means You Can, for example, disable the web browser and the Kindle Store on That device, but leaves the access to the Cloud. Cloud IS WHERE your Kindle purchases are Stored when not downloaded to a device – It’s Your complete online catalog of content.



You can shut everything off, so you know that your child only HAS access to the content on the device and can not go exploring. The Kindle is still connected to the Internet, there just are not any access points from the device.

This Is A Better Option That simply turning on Aeroplane mode, Because books Will Still sync, and Importantly, you can still send books to the Kindle from the Kindle Store on your computer’s browser. You Can Also send documents to the Kindle using the email address Assigned to your Kindle device, for example coursework packs from school.

This Means You Can put the Kindle in the hands of your child and Buy books and definatley Them Delivered to Their device to read. They Will Appear right on the homepage.



Kindle Free Time

However, Amazon Has a system for children called Kindle Free Time. This is, Essentially, a locked-down area Specifically For Them. Using the Kindle Free Time Means You Can Have “your” adult / parental side of the device fully connected and “their” side Safely locked down with only Their content.

Kindle Free Time lets you setup a child (or Number of children) and then assign books to them from your collection. Using Free Time Means you’re buying Those books on your account and sharing them, rather than buying them through an Amazon account in your Child’s Name.

Importantly, however, once you’re into Freetime, you need a password to get out, so it’s a safe area.



From Within Freetime the navigation controls work very much as They do elsewhere, so you can still go home, search, and change some settings, but it’s all Behind That safety barrier. THERE ARE Awards and You have a reading target to Encourage children to read Regularly.

Progress through books willalso be tracked separately from your reading. If you both want to read The Hobbit, for example, your child’s Progress Will Be tracked separately from yours. If you simply Distressed The Same accountability and were reading the same book, it would be constantly trying to sync That book to the furthest read page, Which is not ideal When two seperate people are reading it.



Importantly, unlike locking down a device with parental Control settings above, you still’ll have to assign That content to Freetime for your child. This can be done on the device itself or through a browser, so you can moonrise buy books and assign them to children, but it’s a deliberate action.

Cleverly, you can turn on Freetime on a device and leaves That it into the state most of the time. Restarting the Kindle from Freetime sees it returning to Free Time: The Only way out is to plug in the password.



Households and Family Library

Family Library is a new Kindle Feature That’ll let you Share content with family members. It’s a convenient way for you to share or Manage the content You Have and You Only Have to buy things once.

To Have A Family Library, you Need to Create a Household. This can Consist of Two adults, each withtheir own Amazon account, and up to four children. These childrens accounts are setupsusing Freetime.

As a Household Can not accepted morethan two Amazon accounts (notionally two parents) It is a disadvantage To Have A Child’s Kindle With its own Amazon account, as That third Account Can not Be accommodated and You Can not share content through the Family Library. (Of course not all of Households willhave two parents, or might not have the two parents who want to share content.)



However, Once You Have A Family Library Setup, The Two adult Accounts Can Manage the content the Children get access to. That Means One adult can buy the Content and The Other Can Add or Remove it from Their own account if They Need To.

Once You Have adults and children in a Household, It’s really easy to Manage content through a Browser. In your Account Settings & gt; Manage Your Content and Devices You Can see all your Kindle books and Who in your household’s access to them.



What’s the best childrens Kindle setup?

The range of options and approaches Means That Settings Can Be Tailored To The age of your child and how much autonomy You Want Them To Have. For the younger children, you’ll wanttheir Kindle registered to your Amazon account, but with all the Parental Controls engaged, so there’s no access to your account, Cloud or the web browser.

Then you’ll Want to use freetime That child. If They are getting Their “own” the Kindle device, you can then remotely control the Content They get access to. You Can poison Books by simply buying them an Assigning them to Their Free Time accountable.

You REMAIN in control of content at all times and can moonrise remove books That they’ve finished with or outgrown. Importantly, if you ‘re buying it through your account, it’s your content and you can then share it with younger members of the family. Equally, as a child grows older, using a Household, you can still share older content in the future you might definatley Bought for yourself.

There’s lots of information on the Amazon website about The Different Features and Functions, as well as a range of options to suit Different Ages of children within a family.

Most of the features are available on recentchanges Kindle and Kindle Fire models, but sadly are not yet available through the Kindle apps and some older devices. You can check the full compatibility here.

READ: Amazon Kindle Voyage Review: A first-class trip

LikeTweet

No comments:

Post a Comment