your net:// Surfing with Monika: a father's story

By CHRIS BARTON

It was the moment every father dreads - a rite of passage up there with her first date, or leaving home for the first time. Yes, it was time for my daughter to surf the net.

Not that Monika was a complete newbie when it came to computers. She's been using the PC since about age 2. It started with reading interactive books and has developed into playing games and doing her homework. I think she even wrote her first word on a computer.

But that's all been offline and under parental control. Well, mostly. There was a time recently when she insisted on playing Age of Empires - a reasonably educational game, we thought. But at bedtime she couldn't get the computer simulation out of her head. Peasants kept chopping wood, gathering food and getting killed by marauding horsemen. It was a difficult night. We don't play Age of Empires any more.

Online, Monika is quite adept at sending and receiving e-mail, having signed up to her own Hotmail account a few years ago. I figured a free web-based account meant her e-mail wouldn't get mixed up with mine.

Occasionally, we've used the web together to find stuff for a school project or to visit a website she had heard of, such as www.beaniebabies.com or truebliss.co.nz. Mostly she wasn't that interested. But lately she had been asking about surfing the net. So on the eve of her 9th birthday, I decided it was time.

The lesson began easily enough. She already knows how to click the "dial up networking" icon and turn the modem on. Then we launched the browser and were ready to surf.

I had done a bit of homework myself and suggested we visit Nickelodeon (www.nick.com) or Pokémon (www.pokemon.com), two of the most popular children's sites in the United States.

"No, not Pokémon."

Apparently she's over that.

"This is the browser. Everything you do when you surf the web happens from up here - the address bar."

Monika types www.nick.com and hits "enter." I tell her to watch the top right-hand corner for movement and to glance at the modem for the flashing red lights.

"That means something is happening. Watch the bottom left-hand status bar too. That tells you where you're going and your progress getting there."

We sit, watch and converse:

"Why does it take so long?"

"Well, you know what 'www' stands for, don't you?"

"World wide web."

"Yes, but it also means world wide wait. This is as fast as it gets on our modem. One day when Telecom brings the price down, we'll get a faster connection. We need a faster computer too. One day ... "

At Nickelodeon Monika heads straight for the games section. (Fortunately, the night before I've downloaded the Shockwave plug-in necessary to run most of these.) We play Pull My Finger - a ridiculous game involving clicking on a finger which then moves and makes silly noises. Monika is amused.

Next we cruise over to Netmom, which is found from Ask Jeeves for Kids (www.ajkids.com) - the children's version of the search engine that lets users ask ordinary questions. It also flashes up the questions other kids are already asking. We notice, "Why is poo brown?" - among some more serious ones like, "What are the seven wonders of the world?"

Netmom is one of the many collections of kids' websites compiled by one of the many hardworking netizens who spend their lives looking for sites that are appropriate for children. Again Monika goes to the games section. We visit Camp Runamuck and play the burping fish game. Monika is briefly amused.

"Do you think you might want to visit any of these sites again?"

"Yes, definitely."

I show her one of the greatest inventions of the browser - the bookmark or favourite - where favourite sites can be stored and returned to with just a click. No more typing in the address bar. We create a folder in the favourites list called Monika, revisit the sites and click, "Add to favourites."

Lesson one has been half an hour. Accustomed to the immediacy of television and other media, Monika finds her boredom threshold quickly breached by the slowness of the web.

"I want to go and play with my other yuppie toys," she whines.

With the natural patience of a caring father, I agree - although there is a momentary lapse.

"I just want to show you the search engines - it won't take long. Stay here," I snarl.

Monika slides off her chair to go and play with the piece of string she has attached to the letterbox enabling her to open it from the front door, causing the letters to fall on to the ground.

By lesson two I have done some more homework. We surf to yahooligans! (www.yahooligans.com), the kids' subset of the famous yahoo! - beautifully organised into categories for easy navigation.

"This is fast," she says.

It is. Like yahoo!, the site keeps graphics-file sizes to a minimum, making web pages arrive on screen much more quickly. I tell Monika this will be a good site to go to for homework projects.

We cruise a few more sites, checking out some online jokes. Monika decides to submit one: "What do you call a gorilla with a machinegun? - Sir."

She's intuitively grasped the key aspect of this medium - interactivity, with others and the medium itself.

At www.mamamedia.com she immediately busies herself recreating the look of the website - changing the wallpaper and other bits to her choice. I'm already beginning to feel she doesn't need me any more.

Links


Beaniebabies.com

Truebliss.co.nz

Nickelodeon

Pokemon

Ask Jeeves for Kids

Yahooligans

Mamamedia.com