Topic Video: Social Networks

Hi everyone!

I hope that you will find some useful vocabulary in this video to talk about social networks and their risks, but also about entertainment and age-appropriate leisure activities for children. A very complete one!

So check out this top ten and answer the questions. Then watch it again and try to complete the sentences with up to three words:


a) What are the most desirable features of social networks for kids? Tick the ones you hear:

- parental control
- signing in is only possible with parental approval
- online games
- limits of time spent online
- certain features can be enabled or disabled by parents
- age-appropriate content
- appealing photo-sharing facilities
- adult moderators
- Disney characters
- parents can access chatrooms
- review of photos before upload

b) What other features not mentioned in a) do you think can also be beneficial to a children networking site?


1. Togetherville works ______________ Facebook.
2. At whatswhat, a kids-only network,  it is required to log in with biometric facial recognition ______________ account security.
3. Without ______________, friends are limited to one grade level.
4. In Scuttlepad, content in ______________, ______________ and comments is kept age-appropriate, and photos are reviewed by their staff before posting.
5. At gianthello, friends are made from ______________ email addresses, and not from random online invitations.
6. It's a safe place for your kids to play online if they ______________ games.
7. Skid-e-kids has special features that let parents ______________ and monitor friends.
8. On imbee, parents have ______________ to everything. Age-appropriate parameters can be set, and features can be ______________ or ______________ by parents.
9. At four is kidswirl, which comes ______________ games, photo albums, videos, quizzes, music,...
10. On everloop, children can create ______________ pages, play online games, buy virtual goods and chat through various media.
11. The children's private loop is ______________ anonymous intruders.
12. On Club Penguin, children use penguin avatars to ______________, and they can use emoticons, chats and games to interact.
13. Signing up for children ______________ is forbidden unless they have parental consent. That will also grant parents access to a parent portal where they can ______________ their children post.

Key here... Tell us what you think about these children-friendly networks and their safety features in the comments!

Topic Video: Privacy

Hello everyone,

This is a piece of news that has had most of my attention for the last couple of days. I don't know if you're familiar with the story (I guess you are): Edward Snowden worked for outside contractors of the NSA (National Security Agency), and decided to leak top secret documents about surveillance procedures that were, in his view, a breach of privacy.

The amazing thing, to me, is that he has revealed his identity of his own accord, becoming what is called a whistleblower.

This video takes you through some of the events, in a mixture of British English (from the Telegraph reporter) and American English (from Snowden).  I strongly recommend that you also read the accompanying article (with video on the same page).While some accuse him of treason (which could lead to death penalty, as far as I understood from a newspaper article), others hail him as a hero. The widest coverage I have found on the topic so far is in The Guardian.

Some words whose pronunciation you may want to check before listening (remember, monolingual dictionary on your right):

surveillance
extradite
disclosure


So, some questions:

1. The person who has revealed himself as the whistleblower is a former ________________.
2. The NSA has been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans to find out if _____________ have been in contact with people in the US.
3. Snowden believes that it's fundamentally dangerous to democracy to _______________ of government.
4. He wants to go ______________ to defend the authenticity of his disclosures.
5. The journalist he spoke to, Greenwald, believes that ______________ he must be anxious about what may happen to him.
6. Most likely, he will be ______________ by the US government and _____________ from Hong Kong.

Key coming very soon here!