Accesses since 2000-11-06:
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- How do kids learn to use computers?
- How do kids use computers to learn?
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!
Return to Gary Perlman's Home Page
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.
Watching my kids use a computer has been a great
learning experience for me.
I learned a lot years ago watching Mark at three trying to use his Mac.
The mouse was not easy for him:
- Mark easily learned the left/right movement, but moving the mouse
forward and back to move the cursor up and down took a while.
More than once, I saw him lifing the mouse up off the table
to get the cursor to move up. Whining, he would push the mouse
to the screen. But after a few hours, it was second nature.
- Both boys had problems with the focus of the cursor being one
pixel at the end of the arrow (I liken this to putting my hand
on a handicapped door-opener plate, and it not working because
the tip of my index fingernail is not over the plate). Some
software for kids is more forgiving, but I see adults trying to
click with the "center of mass" of a cursor instead of "the point".
- Once Mark got the cursor to where he wanted it, he would often
move the mouse during his attempt to click. For his first year,
he used a big trackball to avoid this frustration.
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.
To help George@3.5 and save our computer from some unintentional changes:
- I made a startup page for George@3.5,
with textual (for me) and graphical (for him) links in different cells.
- I made a shortcut to MSIE 5.5:
- changed the icon desktop to a yellow happy face
- changed the name to GEORGE
- set the shortcut option to run full screen (and hide other icons)
- Once inside the browser, George@3.5 could get stuck and
not know how to get back, so I make the first shortcut in the favorite links
on the toolbar go to the start page (and changed the icon to the yellow happy face).
- 2000-11-06
Mark@7 really likes
JumpStart 3rd Grade: Mystery Mountain
I am impressed that it comes with a one-year return policy.
- 2000-11.-6
George@3.5 really likes
Busytown,
and Mark loved it at the same age.
I do not think it is still being sold.
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.
I have got a lot of catching up to do on this section.
I'll never catch up.
- 2000-11-06
The first longer book I read to Mark@6 was
The Hobbit.
I was impressed he could keep track of it, with 19 chapters
that probably took over a month to read.
Mark was scared for Bilbo at times, but I came up with
a light-hearted way to explain to Mark that all would turn out well.
"Mark. What is the name of this book? Is it
Is it 'Spiders Poison the Hobbit and He Dies'?
No.
'The Well-Fed Dragon'?
No!"
This worked well, and I've used the meta-knowledge since then.
After reading the Hobbit, we rented
the video,
and Mark@6's review was the same as mine:
"Everyone looked like I expected except Bilbo."
- I still look fondly back to my 4th grade teacher
reading us
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Mark@6 was not too enthused about it, but enjoyed it and
wanted to read more in the series.
- 2000-11-06
I've read the first four Harry Potter books to Mark@6-7.
He's enjoyed them all.
- Sorcerer's Stone
(paper)
(Large Print)
- Chamber of Secrets
(Large Print)
- Prisoner of Azkaban
(Large Print)
- Goblet of Fire
(Large Print)
Chapter 32 was PG-13, so I rewrote it.
- 2000-11-06
Mark@6-7 laughed pretty hard at the Captain Underpants series.
I wish there were more from Pilkey.com.
- Adventures of Captain Underpants
- Attack of the Talking Toilets
- Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space
- Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants
- 2000-11-01
Mark@7 likes to read the
Magic Treehouse
series.
- 2000-12-26
Mark@7 liked being read
Indian in the Cupboard,
which addresses issues of human worth and different times and cultures
in the context of a magical box that brings plastic figures to life,
but he is not keen on reading the next in the series:
Return of the Indian
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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