Slashdot Mirror
Learning Game Consoles for Young Children?
revco_38 asks: "My wife and I are looking into purchasing a game based learning console for our 4 year old boy this Christmas. The two front runners are the VSmile from VTech and the Leapster from Leapfrog. Does the Slashdot community have any experience with either of these products? Are there any other products similar that should be considered? We also have a 2 year old boy so something that lasts would be nice."
Well, I sure as hell wouldn't buy my kid something called a VSmile.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
...to also challenge him with other things to develop his imagination and creativity.
"Old school" stuff like drawing on paper with crayons, playing with blocks, creating with Tinker Toys, Flying paper airplanes, playing with toys that have no electronic gizmos...anything to make him create and imagine, instead of following a pre-programmed toy.
By all means, take advantage of the latest gadgets, but at least suppliment them with creativity-boosting toys.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
My favorite educational entertainment device was 'Stick'.
Stick was great. I could put a crab able on the end and observe centrifical force and mechanical advantage. I could balance it on my hand to improve coordination. I could throw it and chase my dog to build muscles and stamina. I could charge my evil brother with it like charging into battle like King Arthur like in the stories and legends taught to me. I could share my stick with my friends to learn cooperation. I could combine my stick with my friends' sticks to make a fort.
Ahhh, the simple joys of Stick.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
While I don't have any experience with the consoles, as a kid who grew up on educational games for the PC, I'd like to think it worked out pretty well =) Load 'em up with old classics like Number Munchers, Where in the US/World/Time/Hell is Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail...they'll learn a ton. And if they're geeky enough like i was in elementary school, they'll get an award for the "Number Muncher King" in front of the whole school.
On second thought, make sure you limit the amount of time they spend with those games...
/loads up the AppleIIe emulator
Legos
Sure, if you want the two year-old's first spoken words to be not "mommy" and "daddy" but "pwn," "teh," "l33t," "B11F," and "hax0r." His spelling skills will be forever ruined, but hey, at least he'll gain the linguistic skills necessary to speak fluent Bosnian!
I play GameCube side by side with my four year old. It is amazing the things he remembers and associates with. The way he can control characters is awesome. It builds map skills, memory skills, and hand eye coordination.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
But then I am a new father (3mo!), and so untill lately I have not been remotely looking at kids toys. I just have to wonder what is the hardware in these things, and how hard would it be to hack them and write your own software. i.e.
...
Step 1: Hack and boot linux on it
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit?
(Couldn't resist, haven't seen one of those here for a while).
Seriously though, what I see is a cheap full colour LCD hand held that is made of (hopefully) bullet proof plastic - I would expect it to be made more sturdy than toys made for older kids (aka adults) who don't throw things when they are frustated(well, not that often anyways.)
More Caffeine. NOW
I seriously doubt this parent is going to substitute a preschool-aged video game system for human interaction. My daughter (3.5) is at school almost 8 hours a day. I think most kids like her get enough interaction that a bit of video game time isn't going to damage them forever.
That said, we like the VSmile a lot. The basic cartridge that it comes with has a few games on it, and she does OK with it. It took a bit of practice for her to figure out how to use the joystick properly, and she likes to hit the colored buttons just to hear the guy say them over the TV. Most games that we've played only require the joystick and the big orange button, so getting started is easy. The graphics are probably SNES quality, along with similar sound. We had to get extra carts, though, cause the one it comes with gets old fast.
The other thing I like about the VSmile is it has a portable counterpart. Think TurboGrafix 16, but for kids. We haven't purchased it yet, but I have to drive my daughter a few hours each way on my custody weekends, and that's something to help entertain her when we've played out all the Barney and Veggie Tales CDs...
One final comment -- if you get the VSmile, get the AC adapter. It takes 3C batteries, but they get eaten quickly, especially since small children are prone to turning the unit on without you knowing (and hence leaving it on for an extended period of time).
That should be an albinoblacksheep production: Where In The Hell Is Carmen Sandiego? Like Windows RG edition.
blarg.
Its not that I disapprove of video games. I love them and waste quite a lot of time on them. But not as much as I could. Now I understand that these arent the typical game console, but it builds a response in the child. Responses are sent from the system to the child in a pre-programmed manner. There is no room for experimentation. Get your kid some interactive toys, like lego's blocks, playmobil, something where there is only your child and the toy, not some machine that gives answers based on some programmers idea of how it should all work out.
Small children have a built in desire to mimic their parents, and are often merely offended by toys that obviously don't have the same features that a real computer or device has. These "learning" machines also suffer from the flaw of manipulation. A child will learn much more when they are given the opportunity to choose for themselves; rather then being led by the nose down whatever path pop-child-psychology is headed these days.
That being said I'm the father of a four year old also, and his "toys" are the exact same things I play with. He has his own computer with a regular windows desktop just like mine, and access to the same types of applications I use. If I want him to try out something "educational" on his computer, I let him see me using the program, and it isn't long before he wants to try it as well. When I'm building a new computer, he gets out his motherboards and cables, and builds one also.
He also likes to play Xbox and Gamecube games. These games (if carefully chosen) are going to do a lot more for you than any educational software simply because of quality. There's an obvious difference in quality between educational software that has a short development cycle, and a full fledged game that has a mature industry behind it. A game that inspires interest will also inspire learning. Games with built-in world creation tools (like MoonBase Commander) are a good choice Also, any game or piece of software can be educational, especially if you take the time to select it yourself for its value.
The point is that kids are smart. They don't like to be manipulated any more then we do. My four year old is learning to read so he can understand the menu's in Homeworld 2 better. He'll learn the things that last by having his own motivations to learn them.
only one everything
First off, let me say I don't have any kids. I understand your wanting "something better" for your daughter, and I also understand that you want to cultivate in your daughter a sense that she can be who she wants to be, and not who you want her to be. The former can lead to independence and joy, the latter to resentment.
However, don't kid yourself about the tech field. IT and other knowledge-based industries are the *ultimate* jobs, for the people who love them and know history. These are jobs where an individual can get paid very good (sometimes excellent) money, sitting around in a cubicle or other work area, in air-conditioned comfort, just for thinking. Most of the time at these jobs, thinking is the greatest portion of the job. Given enough thought and proper design, the actual product takes little time to create, respectively. At no other time in history have there been so many of these kinds of intellectual jobs available at one time.
There is a downside. The fact that anyone who has a brain, two hands, and an internet connection to do the vast majority of these jobs for the lowest bid has helped to lead to the issues we in the tech industry see today, that of vast amounts of outsourcing. However, the knowledge worker job will not go away. It will, however, expand more. This will probably mean less money for everyone overall, but possibly more money for those with stronger and more varied knowledge skills.
Ultimately, cultivating in your daughter a sense that she can be and do whatever she wishes is the most important thing. However, if it turns out that she wants to go into a "tech field" - and really shows that she loves it, don't try to discourage her. Guide her as best as you can, teach her the strengths and pitfalls of whatever she chooses (and realize that what she thinks today may change in 2 weeks to 5 years depending on her age), and let her be happy with her choice. Ultimately, whatever job/career she chooses, she should be happy with that choice, and look forward to performing her job each day. One can either be happy as a manager at quik-e-mart, or depressed and frustrated dealing with court cases as a lawyer - or vice-versa, of course...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon