Gary Perlman's Kids and Computers (and other information technology, like video games and books)

Accesses since 2000-11-06:    Last Modified:

Purpose of this Site

These are important questions, and you might find some answers on my compilation of resources: Kids and Computers, but you won't find the answer here!

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This page is specifically about what Gary Perlman's kids (Mark and George) are doing with computers and other information technology. It includes links to purchase that technology at amazon.com, for which all referral royalties are paid to BuckCHI, the Central Ohio Chapter of ACM SIGCHI.


Anecdotes

Watching my kids use a computer has been a great learning experience for me.

Learning How to Mouse

I learned a lot years ago watching Mark at three trying to use his Mac. The mouse was not easy for him: Now George@3.5 is getting interested in computers. After a year of visits to the library during which we would inevitably spend some time at pbs.org/teletubbies, he now has easy access from home. Like many 3-year-olds, George@3.5 is a "do-it-myself" kind of user. Being too lazy to see up a shell for him on Windows, I soon learned that when he asked for help "Teletubbies is broken", it meant that he had 5-10 dialogs open, including several control panels.

Kid's Startup Page

To help George@3.5 and save our computer from some unintentional changes:

Software


Games

We do not have a game console, and are not eager to get one. Mark@7 plays games on the computer and on his Game Boy. I don't feel too bad about him on that because he reads a lot, plays piano and soccer, and is very active.

Books

I have got a lot of catching up to do on this section. I'll never catch up.

Music

Driving around, listening to the radio, Mark@6 would sing along and say "That's the Backstreet Boys." There were enough songs I liked that I went to amazon.com and listened to cuts off the albums with RealPlayer. It's a great way to buy music (and to decide not to buy music I thought was great in high school):

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