Kate Etue, Author at Cool Mom Tech

15 fun Amazon Echo skills for the holidays, from fun and festive to really helpful

Just in time for the holidays, we’ve found 15 fun Amazon Echo skills that can help you stay organized, add a little more fun to your family time, and even put some magic into the holidays for your kids. If you and Alexa are in a rut, just remember: she can do a...

Outschool: Real-time, teacher-led courses for kids…from home.

by Kate Etue | Educational Apps For Kids, Websites Worth a Bookmark

As a homeschool mom, there’s something I’ve realized about myself over the past couple years: I’m not great at everything. There are some subjects I definitely teach better than others (hello, writing!), and some that I have no business attempting to...

3 affordable Apple Watch alternatives for kids

by Kate Etue | Fashion + Accessories

My sixth-grader has been asking me to splurge on an Apple Watch for her lately, but I don’t see that in her future at the moment. The thing is: she doesn’t have a phone yet. So I see little value in spending that kind of money on a watch, when she...

Does Gmail have parental controls? Well, here’s the deal.

by Kate Etue | Tips and Tricks

In our Out Tech Your Kids group on Facebook, we’ve had several questions about parental controls for Gmail, with so many kids needing and using email accounts. We did some research to see what parents can and can’t do when it comes to monitoring their...

10 things you need to know before using a school-issued laptop

by Kate Etue | Back to School Tech

For lots of middle school kids, back to school means back to tech. Specifically: school-issued laptops. Of course, when we’re thinking about our kids and tech that they don’t own themselves, but they’re responsible for day-in and day-out, that comes...

How to set up a family account for your Kindle library. Yay for sharing books!

by Kate Etue | Tips and Tricks

My daughter and I have the same taste in books, generally, so we love sharing anything good we’ve read lately. That’s typically been much easier to do with hardcopy books than digital ones, but now you can set up a Family Library for your Kindle library....

3 great podcasts to help you learn a foreign language

by Kate Etue | Entertainment

We get all sorts of awesome questions in our Out Tech Your Kids Facebook Group. You are a member, right? Recently, a parent asked for foreign language podcast recommendations for kids. So, we dug around and found these 3 great podcasts to help you learn a foreign...

3 free audiobook apps you need for back to school

by Kate Etue | Educational Apps For Kids

School will be starting up soon, and that means my kids’ tech will be focused more on education than Fortnite in a few weeks. Sorry, kids. I’m going to start by downloading these free audiobook apps that let you borrow them (along with books, movies, and...

The new Minecraft x Pottery Barn Kids collection will make blockheads everywhere squeal!

by Kate Etue | Art + Decor

Gamer alert: your kids can now play Minecraft all night long—in their dreams—with the new Minecraft x Pottery Barn Kids collection that just launched. This is your chance to be the coolest mom ever, and we think if you have a Minecraft-obsessed kid (hands raised) then...

Wear your emotions on your rear window with Mojipic

by Kate Etue | Tech Toys and Random Fun

I’m not much of a bumper sticker person, although I do love a clever quip on someone else’s car in traffic. But when I saw the new Mojipic mount for a car’s rear windshield, I thought maybe they were on to something. This small LED screen displays...

NEW: The podcast that helps you be a savvier digital parent in under 15 minutes a week

Hi! We’re Kristen + Liz

Kristen Chase + Liz Gumbinner of Cool Mom Picks

We started Cool Mom Tech in 2010 to help make our increasingly digital lives easier, more organized, more meaningful, and more fun, however old your kids may be.

We love that it's grown to become the go-to source for millions of parents who want commonsense info about tech delivered with a smile.

We even have the privilege of sharing our tips + tricks with The TODAY Show, CNN, HLN, GMA, Nightline, newspapers and magazines around the country, and our favorite -- regular parents who stop us at PTA meetings and ask us how old kids need to be to get a smartphone, and whether they really need to panic about Snapchat.

(Answer: It's complicated.)

We're so glad you're here! And we hope we can help you too.