I’ve just taught my son how to use mac photo recoverytool.

~Matt

I agree personal iTunes accounts are great for kids managing their own money as well as purchases. Lots of good conversations can take place around this! I learned from Tony Vincent last year how to create iTunes accounts without a credit card, which is also very good – this way, kids can’t spend beyond their gift card balance.

Everyone in our family shares the same iTunes library, which is stored on an external hard drive I sync periodically with my laptop to all our mobile devices. The thing I really noticed this week (when I went through this process) is how important it is to have everyone home – Whoever bought a particular app with their account has to enter THEIR password to download the update. It made me think this will get tough if we still have these same apps when they go to college! Of course by then we may all be syncing our devices to virtual drives “in the cloud” – More likely the kids will migrate entirely to their own accounts on their own laptops at some point. For now, however, it’s great to be able to share apps and music, just as we do with Amazon Kindle eBooks when we buy them on the same account.

I’m so glad to have inspired you to try iPadio with your family – I really am amazed how easy it is relative to other methods of web-posting audio. I hope they don’t go the way of Gcast or Gabcast!

If you’re willing I’d love to get the links to your family blog / podcast channel. I think we need to encourage more personal use of technology like this for family learning as well as classroom learning! Last year at NECC (2009) I presented on The Power of Our Family Learning Blog.

My post last July, “What’s your media platform for knowledge sharing?” and this March’s post “Platforms for idea sharing are essential (even family learning blogs)” both reflect my belief that we ALL can benefit in multiple ways when we maintain “platforms for knowledge sharing.”

I’m sure in about 12 years when all our kids are out of high school, we’ll be looking back at these examples of their thinking and work with fondness – remembering these shared times of learning, and enjoying the window they provide into the development as well as personality of each child.

About a year ago, we created individual iTunes accounts for them so that they could download and manage their iTunes purchases on their own laptops and iPods. We have found that iTunes gift cards make great stocking stuffers and small rewards for the boys. We’ll buy a $50 set of $10 gift cards and hand them out as the occasions arise.

This gift card method allows the boys to add the money onto their iTunes account, make purchases, manage the balance and make their own decisions about spending wisely on apps. From a parents standpoint, it works out great because we do not have to put in our credit card information on the boys accounts, rather, they can buy apps until the balance on their account hits zero:)
Love the family focus to this and many of your other posts, Wes. It’s great to see how other parents are using technology in daily life to create and enhance anytime, anyplace learning opportunities for their families!