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I did this with an old MS-BOB CD I got at a TechNet conference:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/clock3.html

The horn-rimmed glasses on the yellow smiley face looks great as a clock.....or you can decorate it yourself with acrylic paint.... To top it off, I had a dual-CD case (the ones that would fold out flat, not the ones that resembled a book) and it makes a great clock stand.

Layne

Off-topic, but who knew that MS-BOB was ahead of his time fashion wise...he and HRG from Heros would make a great duo.

The red cross on a white background has come to symbolize basically any emergency medical support. Like the term "Asprin," it is in broad use enough that it doesn't represent a company or group, but (in this case) a service.

It's not like it was a particularly original symbol to begin with.

So, I guess we won't be using thep pringle-can macro lens to look at the server hosting the pringle-can macro lens site, unless we want to look at a charred, burned out hulk that used to be computer chassis...

Here is a pringle can antenna.
This is a pringle can pinhole camera.
Another pringles project, a pencil holder.
A bunch more uses for pringle cans are available here.

First of all, you could start with Lego Mindstorms (which is a little humorous as it's so close to LOGO [by name, at least]). This seems like a good hands-on way for kinds to learn some programming with tangible effect.

There is also a teaching version of Scheme (somewhat like lisp). See the FAQ for the "Teach Scheme" project here.

There is also a list of softwrae to use in teaching programming here, but I've not looked it over and am not sure how useful it is.

With a 0-1.5 year old, 'up' often equals 'out of reach'. Besides, there's FAR too many interesting things near the floor that mum & dad don't want her to reach- why look any higher? So, your average computer desk should be fine. Make sure it's off when you're not around and it probably won't seem so interesting, for a while :)

All bets are off once they master climbing, though. That's where distraction comes in. Sacrifice that laptop to the gods by installing programs like flabbergasted. Give the tyke her own computer, so she'll be less interested in yours.

Caution: kids learn computers quickly with this method. My 7yo boy tried to social-engineer my Linux password the other day.

Another entry into programming is creating web pages, by tweaking them with JavaScript, and eventually CGI scripts. Really anything that allows tweaking is good, such as tweaking Mozilla or the computer desktop. Programming is about tweaking the world.

Once they feel ready to transition to a full programming language (Java, C++, etc.), there are ways to ramp up to that too. JavaScript is a great way to learn object-oriented concepts. Learning game programming really motivates kids and they learn about 3D graphics too (Nehe and GameTutorials). For building real desktop applications, NetBeans and the free JBuilder edition let you visually design java user interfaces, but something like Thinlets simplifies java development greatly (and introduces you to XML, see also other XUL-based development tools). Of course there are thousands of resources out there for learning java, see Sun's New to Java center.

Lastly, I think kids should keep a blog or a journal somewhere. If you have webspace, set them up a MovableType blog and let them tweak everything they want (adding commenting, shoutboxes, javascript goodies, etc.).

Yes! That one was called "Bash Big Blue". You would chase an IBM logo around with an Apple logo. You got points if you caught IBM. I think the game might still be downloaded at http://www.kidsdomain.com/down/mac/retroengine.htm l. This was back when IBM and not Microsoft was the big bad monopoly.

Do you remember Purple Moon? They thought much the way you do. "Oooh, girls like talking, so we'll make games about how difficult it is to get through school! They'll gossip about the other girls, and they'll try to be popular."

Purple Moon didn't survive. They were eventually bought by Mattel, mostly (as I recall), as a method of acquiring inexpensive office equipment.

As someone who's made successful games for girls, I can say that girls do like to solve puzzles.

It's true that they're not as into score as much as males are; they tend to prefer goals. And they don't project themselves into the character as much as men do, they usually prefer to play alongside the onscreen persona.

Granted, my games are for a slightly younger set, but the lessons translate well into later life.

Also, think The Sims. Very high female user base. Not really much "conversation", per se, but lots of goals.

That being said, I know several girls who game many types of games, both inside the game industry and out. I believe that most of the female aversion to gaming had to do with the way it was introduced in the 80's, rather than a genetic predisposition. But I tend to favor nurture over nature.

=Brian

Knowledge Adventure presents a whole new concept to the Baby Software world with JumpStart Baby with Baby Ball. The ball is big and sits on the desk in front of your child. Rather than clicking a mouse or striking a key on the keyboard baby pushes down on the oversized ball and gets the same effect.

I had this image in my mind of my boss walking into my office, while I'm not just posting to Slashdot, but doing it moving a Teddy bear around by pressing on this big baby ball on my desk with a big, stupid smile on my face. It must be a good thing, after all a happy worker is a productive worker. Just think of my productivity increase as I make the bear run around the screen pecking out C code. Go Teddy go!

>because i other things to do.

Maybe you could take either of these fine courses? >:-D

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

Young children are fantastically good at learning languages by example, but often not good at predicate logic or deductive reasoning, which takes a lot of training. (As an aside, the book Reading Reflex applies this insight to teaching reading - instead of teaching deductive rules parrot fashion, it groups different representations of the same sound and gets the children to work through them until they derive an unconscious model that way).

The best 'programming' exercise with small children is the 'I am a robot' game. You play their robot slave, and do what you are told, but very literally, and in small stages, with 'error messages' returned in a robot voice. Just getting you to walk from the sofa to the bedroom can take ages and they love it. They naturally want to be the simple-minded robot too (just make sure they don't get too attached to it, or they may end up working in telephone support).

I've seen a huge amount of 'educational' software - I used to work in the CD-ROM business, and I buy up remaindered CD's from Marshalls for my 2 boys and watch how they use them. Most of them are dross, with the same few ideas (Pelmanism, missing words etc.) recycled with a different character or brand attached. Some have genuine insight, and I can see them learning to reason using them. Here are a selection:

Logical Journey of the Zoombinis is a wonderful introduction to deductive logic through a compelling game. It was designed with this in mind and my boys have been playing this since they were 3, and are still enjoying it now at 5 and 7 (as do I).

The Pajama Sam series of adventures from Humongous are good at teaching the global/local focus, but one that is great fun and teaches valuable debugging skills is Pajama Sam's SockWorks which features a long series of machines that have socks in them that you have to get into the right coloured baskets. As you can also build your own puzzles, the idea of solvable and unsolvable problems naturally comes up.

Zap! is another great game that teaches by stealth. You have to help 3 wisecracking cartoon charcters to fix their electrical, optical and audio-visual gadgets to get their show on the road. It manages to include a compelte circuit simulator, an optical workbench simulator and sound environment simulator, and still be lots of fun for Kindergarten children.

To teach programming concepts without writing textual code, Cocoa is perfect (if you have a Mac). It is a tool that enables you to create 2d video games by drawing the characters and defining what happens when they encounter each other by example. Andrew has made about 65 games with this, some original, some homages to TV programs or his brother's films.

Finally, if you want a comprehensible textual language, use Runtime Revolution, whose language Transcript is based on the old Apple HyperCard language, and as such has completely human-readable programs. This is what I plan to get Andrew into next.
(republished from my blog, May 12th 2002)

Thinking in terms of Music Construction Set...SimTunes was a great, if somewhat obscure game. Maxis rebranded version of "Musical Bugs" by Japanese artist Toshio Iwai. (demo here?). The idea was you had a big blank grid, that you could paint with colored blocks. 4 "bugs" would walk over the grid, and when they passed a color would play the pitch (or percussionish noise, if that was the type of voice you set the bug to) corresponding to that color. Other blocks would warp or otherwise redirect the bugs. You could focus on making a cool picture, a cool sound (it really could be used as a 'poor man's sequencer') or both. Very powerful, with "kiddy" and "advanced" (but still pretty friendly) interface settings.

They released this 5 or 6 years ago, recently rereleased in a pack of Kid-oriented Sim games. The original was fairly cranky in its need for certain DirectX drivers (windows of course), I bought the rerelease but haven't yet installed it to see if they improved the driver situation.

A great creative musical toy...maybe better for kids/teens/adults with a smattering of musical experience. (They have some cool music theory embedded in there, like you can constrain the notes to the blues or other scale...)

Try ABClassroom. The child can click letters on the screen or hit them on the keyboard, and the computer will say the letter. It also teaches shapes and colors, and has a "chalkboard."

The program is for Windows and costs nothing. It also makes it difficult for a child to exit the program, even disabling CTRL-ALT-DEL.

This might be too advanced for a 19-month-old. But it should be fine for a 24- to 30-month-old. If the child can click-and-drag, they will like the "chalkboard".

You might also try Crash, Bang, Wallop. I found the program to be a little annoying (too noisy!), but it is simple and very young kids will like it. It is also a free windows program.

Lego Alpha Team is a game that makes the player solve spatial puzzles to continue to the next level. The puzzles require the player to place special blocks that change the direction of movement of the on-screen characters.

In effect, you "program" the movement to accomplish a specific goal. In fact, the playing process reminds me a great deal of programming. Kind of an edit-run-debug sort of process. You have unlimited time and lives to complete the puzzles (unlike actual programming, I guess).

All of this is wrapped up in a action/adventure story-line which keep it engaging. My eight-year-old son loves this game and I enjoy playing it too.

Check out the game's home page and a review at Kid's Domain.

trichard

there's plenty of strategical thinking in that game

Only for newbies. Once you're good at it (> 20 hours of play), Tetris does not involve all that much strategy. Eventually, placing the next tetramino becomes almost a reflex action. Some newer versions of Tetris try to break this up by adding bonuses for forming 4x4 squares (The New Tetris), chain reactions (Tetanus, Quadra, The Next Tetris), "magic" items (TetriNET; DuelTris for Apple IIGS; Tetris Jr.), or distracting display effects (TOD; Tetripz).

Microsoft has been able to use multiple mice to drive one pointer since Win 3.1. I don't know when they first implemented this, but it was a feature of the MS EasyBall. It plugged into one serial port and an conventional mouse plugged into the other. When the normal mouse was used, the mouse pointer was like ..er.. well..normal. When the EasyBall was used, the pointer would change shape. This was so a parent and a child could interact with the computer. I doubt very many geeks would use it: it had only one button, and the trackball was yellow and about the size of a softball. Given that the base of white, it looked like a mutant fried egg.

I hope you don't meen touchy-feely things like the crud Purple Moon puts out, trying to get girls to use computers by reinforcing sexual stereotypes and making them more relationshippy. There was an AP or Reuters story (can't find it now, sorry) a few weeks ago about a study that found women use the internet now as much as men, but for girly things like women.com--the same hoo-ha in women's magazines at the grocery store.
Dumbing things down to "appeal to women" may get my mom looking at martha stewart online but it's not going to attract women to programming, diddling with hardware or playing with unix.

If you mean there's a chicken-and-egg problem of support for women in IT you're right; people don't generally want to get involved in something no one they know does. That's why groups like Linux Chix and unix sluts are helpful, because they let women know they are not alone in their choice to go into techie things.

Squeak has a lot going for it, but familiarity for Windows users is not on the list. Probably a better choice would be Dolphin Smalltalk; it "feels like Windows" (a good thing in this case), it's a real Smalltalk, it comes with good tutorial documentation, and there's a free (as in beer) version available.

Good news: Smalltalk was designed (back in the 1970s, assuming computers as powerful as we have today!) to be a programming language for kids. Bad news: Really smart kids took to it like fish to water, but most really struggled.

Those of us who cut our teeth on punch cards and Teletypes were used to command line (or worse) interfaces and text programs. Today's kids aren't; even typing Smalltalk programs may bore them.

Consider Stagecast Creator or Toon Talk as a couple of purely visual development environments. They're more suited towards development of games and simulations, but that's a plus if the goal is to get your children excited about programming (probably the right target at first).

Here are a couple of stories about teaching kids to program: This one from Kids Domain has a lot of links to resources, while this one from Suite101.com is an interview (with fewer but entirely distinct links).