Let me place a disclaimer on this post. I try to personally use everything that I post about, however, I came across this site and have to admit that I have not downloaded the software. I only know what the Kidzui site tells me. Nonetheless, this looks like a great tool for us to offer our parents. Just be sure to try it yourself before you offer it to them!

**Kind of cool that Todd McKeever at Take 2.0 blogged about this on the same day! We didn’t coordinate, I promise!

You may also be interested in:

1. Kidoz web browser
2. K9 Internet Filter
3. Open DNS Internet Filter

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You may have read my post early on about K9 internet filtering. K9 is a good resource to use in home computers, but I have recently found out that to put it on your church computers (i.e. business) you need to purchase a license.

You may want to check out OpenDNS. It provides similar internet saftety solutions and is completely free for any setting. I must admit that I have not used this yet. I plan on taking K9 off of one of my church computers and installing OpenDNS on it instead.

Have you had any experience with OpenDNS? Tell us about it.

I recently came across a program which provides a safe and entertaining web environment for kids. It’s called Kido’z. Kido’z is a great resource to pass along to your parents or to install on computers that kids may use in your ministry. You can read more about it here. It is in the beta version now, so you can get it for free. Eventually they will come out with a premium version with more features, but from their site, it looks like the free version is very usable.

Please let me know if you have ever used this program before. How did it work?

Do you know of any similar web environments for kids?

You may recall a post of mine back in April on a free internet filter called K-9. Filters are great, but we need to be educated about what is being filtered. Children are so precious that any and every step should be taken to protect them from the dangers of internet predators, pornography and scams.

Besides internet filtering, parents and leaders of Children’s Ministries need to be well educated about what is out there facing kids and how to protect them. That’s were a great website called NetSmartz comes in. NetSmartz is a resource of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. NetSmartz has a parent resource section including free training/education videos, back to school safety checklists and link to a knowledge base called NetSmartz411. It also hosts a kids site for educating children using games, kid-friendly articles, videos and fun characters. This kid-centered site is called Netsmartzkids.

The kid site is a bit busy, but proves to have some valuable tools. This site is a definite resource to pass along to families and kids within our ministry. Please comment below if you have any other sites that are beneficial to educating kids and families about internet safety issues.

Do you know what the most important thing is? (Yes, I’m playing the “what is Andy thinking game!”). Let’s try again. Do you know what the most important thing is? (Insert basic Sunday school answer here…). You probably guessed it, the most important thing is Jesus! The Most Important Thing website is a great evangelism tool that is both free and easy!

You register with them, put your brief testimony on the site and then begin sending people with whom you witness to the site. From the site, they can read your testimony, see an interactive gospel presentation and respond in various ways. You can even have the site report to you when someone reads your page or makes a decision based on your testimony. It is very simple, people just go to the site and put your name in the search bar. They can click your name based on location (in case someone else has the same name on the site) and then read your testimony about how you trusted in Christ.

This site is sponsored by the Baptist State Convention of Oklahoma, but is not denominational in nature. It is for anyone who would like a new tool to effectively share the gospel. You can purchase business cards from their site for a very cheap price or have your own made at VistaPrint like I did. I put the website address, my name and some brief contact info on the card. I use these a lot at drive throughs and in grocery store lines. I usually say something quick like this: “I love to share how much of a difference Jesus has made in my life. If you get a chance would you to take a few minutes to go to this website, type in my name and see my story?” It takes all of 10 seconds and I’ve never had someone turn away a card.

Share this website with your kids and teach them about building a testimony. They can make business cards for themselves and invite their friends to view their story!

There are a ton of internet filters to choose from and they pretty much all cost money. You can choose Safe Eyes, AFO, bsafeonline, and Net Nanny. They will cost you $40-50 and/or a monthly charge. These are all adequate filters and have received good reviews, however, K9 Web Protection is a diamond in the rough. It is completely free and has been downloaded over 1 million times. It offers real time protection and updates and works seamlessly in your existing browser without any extra search bars, plug ins or add ons.

The parent company, Blue Coat makes its money by securing network systems for Fortune 500 companies. They seem genuinely concerned about helping families keep a safe and secure home and that is why they offer K9 Web Protection for free. It uses the exact same database and technology as their commercial system. You can look here for details about what K9 offers.

This program is free for home use and would be a great resource to promote to the parents of your ministry. We use this in my home and only my wife knows the password. This keeps me (and my brother in law who lives with us) accountable and encourages us to live above reproach. It is very easy to check for sites that have been visited via the web-based administration page. It is also impossible to deactivate or uninstall without the main administrator password. I hope it can be of benefit to your home and the homes of families in your ministry.