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Learning Software for Toddlers?
dunkan asks: "I know there are a lot of different software packages out there available for children. But I have an 19 month old boy who loves to move the mouse, and press buttons. While he can randomly start winamp and skip through the playlist, he doesn't know what he is doing.
Does anyone have software suggestions for children in this age group? I would think it would be a simple as moving the mouse, or pressing a key, or whatever, gives a response that teaches them what the effect of their actions are. I have looked, but haven't found anything useful yet."
Time-telling, or basic english word skills software recommendations would be great. Bonus if it's free software, as always. :-)
hi,
you can try doing a search on "lapware", (so named because the kids sits in your lap). I have many of the titles that will come up on that, and I am sorry to report that you will probably not be impressed.
All one would need would be, for example, some of the screen savers that come up on gnome by default (Xscreensaver? I don't know), but with the mouse changing a parameter, and maybe the keyboard switching to another screen saver.
Reader Rabbit's Toddler is not too bad (unfortunately our cd had been kidified, so my 22-month-old comes in regularly, tugging on my finger to get tech support when it tried to read a scrated area of the disk and crashes).
These programs frustrate me immensely in their closed-sourceness, howeer, because there are tiny little improvements (like being able to click to skip the introductory yakking) that would be easy to make and would make a huge difference for impatient toddlers.
Another thing you might try is subscribing to home-ed (I think home-ed-request@world.std.com) and posting your question there. That should net you a list of many titles and strong opinions in many directions.
good luck. also, feel free to email me if you have any more questions on this.
mike
Liberty uber alles.
A couple of years ago, when I was working in the software department at Fry's Electronics in Silicon Valley, the most popular children's software was the JumpStart series from Knowledge Adventure.
I received praise after praise from customers, who came back time and again to purchase more of their products as they released new ones. Knowledge Adventure has since expanded their product line considerably, breaking their software down into a few different categories, depending on the type of learning you're interested in.
From the sounds of it, you're looking for something along the lines of "JumpStart Baby" or "JumpStart Toddler", both a part of the "Full Grades" category. Other titles from this category include "JumpStart Preschool", "JumpStart Kindergarten", and a product each for 1st through 6th grades.
These titles come highly recommended from parents across the country (I know, I've spoken with them face-to-face!), although I've never looked at them myself (excuses: don't have kids yet, don't really have the money to buy software I won't use, I run mostly Linux).
The best thing is that nearly, if not, all of their products run on both Windows and Macintosh computers (hybrid CD-ROM), meaning almost everyone out there can take advantage of them. Unfortunately, they do not have a Linux version, and I am unsure as to whether or not they run under Wine, VMWare, or the like. If they do, I'd be interested to hear about it, as I'm sure many Linux-running parents and educators may want to hear as well.
On a side note, I'm sure all those parents out there that have been using the JumpStart series for a few years wouldn't mind donating the products that their children have outgrown to a school. Don't forget, just because your local school may have computers in the classroom now, that doesn't mean they have a huge amount of software, or the budget to purchase stuff for the kids to use. Don't throw out your old software, and don't even sell it in a garage sale. Donate it to your local school!
Don Head
UNIX/Linux Administrator
I'm reminded of a radio show I heard on the benefits of reading to children. One woman called in and claimed that kids are never too young to be read to. As proof, she cited her two daughters, both read to from birth. Both grew up to be librarians! But I suspect their career choices have less to do with any cognitive benefits of being read to than with the emotional bonds books helped create for them.
It all comes down to Play. It's the most important thing kids can do for themselves, but hey, they're born knowing how to do it. The best we can do for them is offer them tools to make the most out of their play. And not get miffed when they turn up their noses at the tools we offer, or at our opinions on how to use them. Remember, they're the experts!
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.
You might find something useful in the list of packages packaged by the Debian Jr. project.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Agreed. Jane Healy's book, "Failure to Connect" should be required reading before buying software for young children. For a toddler, a much better activity would be those flat wooden puzzles where the pieces have little handles, and each fits into its own individually-shaped hole.
. . . and they won't be blind by the time they're 19 years old (unless you've got LCDs).
Seriously, get your kid to run around and play a lot, before she/he turns into a fat fourth grader (those kids are often ostrascized). Introduce computers and qbasic around eight or ten after they've begun to appreciate the real world first.
I found Kids Freeware recently, which appears to have quite a selection.
-Adam