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Kids Can Swipe a Screen But Can't Use LEGOs
SpankiMonki sends this news from The Guardian:
"Children are arriving at nursery school able to 'swipe a screen' but lack the manipulative skills to play with building blocks, teachers have warned. They fear that children are being given tablets to use 'as a replacement for contact time with the parent' and say such habits are hindering progress at school. Addressing the Association of Teachers and Lecturers conference in Manchester on Tuesday, Colin Kinney said excessive use of technology damages concentration and causes behavioural problems such as irritability and a lack of control."
The issue is not the building blocks themselves, but the serious lack of coordination skills on the part of the children.
If you can't get a couple of blocks to snap together, how are you going to deal with tying your shoes?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I didn't know that the bricks could only be used once, and in one specific order.
Allow me to blow your mind. Those same pieces can be used to build what ever you can imagine. Then they can be taken apart and used to build something totally different. The instructions are only a suggestion.
geez, when I was a kid we had to play around with the chemicals under the sink for entertainment ..
Most parents today are horrible. They do NOT interact with the chile like laying on the floor and playing with them. Get your asses off the couch and lie on the floor playing with your kids showing them how to stack blocks, and play.
I gave my daughter a earfull having my granddaughter use the ipad at 2 to keep her entertained. No you play with her using physical objects, and interaction.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It because he uses the kragle.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
It's not the blocks that are important, it is the active use of imagination and motor skills. Comparatively less imagination and motor skills are used interact with a flat, rectangular panel of glass. Kids learn (partly) by playing and doing. With tablet screens, they are not doing as much. Fruit Ninja does is not as good as blocks.
Exposing children to new technology is a terrible idea.
An Egyptian legend relates that when the god Thoth revealed his invention of writing to King Thamos, the good King denounced it as the enemy of civilization. "Children and young people," protested the monarch, "who had hitherto been forced to apply themselves diligently to learn and retain whatever was taught them would cease to apply themselves and would neglect to exercise their memories."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
IF you only use it to build one set, then you are the problem, not Lego.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Reminds me of one of the most frustrating realizations of my life. When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Lego. I often asked for lego as gifts but rarely got any.
As an adult, I found out why. My mom asked me what a little boy in the family might want as a gift. I asked what he was into, and one of the things was Lego. Apparently he was a big fan too.
"Then you can't go wrong with more Lego," I said.
My mom replies "But he already has Lego."
*GIANT FUCKING FACEPALM*
Now it all made sense :-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Those same pieces can be used to build what ever you can imagine.
No so easily nowadays. Lego comes with huge numbers of very specialized pieces which are taylor made for that particular model. You can get the basic bricks but most Lego today is aimed at building one model and then playing with it rather than getting a pile of bricks and letting your imagination run wild.
There is one exception though: Mindstorms! This is simply brilliant and the new EV3 version even runs Linux! It's one of the few toys that are around today that I really wish I had been available when I was a kid.
Colin Kinney said excessive use of technology damages concentration and causes behavioural problems such as irritability and a lack of control.
Seriously? These `behavioural problems` describe every pre-schooler I've ever met.
Don Dugger
"Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
The main quote comes from a teacher who works for a think tank(that needs funding) talking about conversations he had with other teachers... not stuff he's done himself.
"I've spoken to a number of nursery teachers who have concerns over the increasing numbers of young pupils who can swipe a screen but have little or no manipulative skills to play with building blocks – or pupils who can't socialise with other pupils, but whose parents talk proudly of their ability to use a tablet or smartphone."
I don't think the "use of technology" causes these problems. Rather it is the failure of children to play much with physical objects, as all previous generations have done, and in extreme cases, failure to learn social interaction. That doesn't mean we have to eliminate computers from children's lives, it means children need more parenting and human contact.
which is already concerning, as fine motor skills are very important, the other sentence in the article that worried me was the mention that kids now have trouble memorizing even simple lines for a play, since they are used to information being easily always available so they aren't putting in the effort of learning it.
As much as easy global information access is great, unless you learn the basics it's quite difficult to make sense of what's available and to have an informed opinion. Just because you have a river of information always available it doesn't help if you can't relate to it, it makes you that much more susceptible to being influenced, because since you are not able to discriminate between quality information and misleading or wrong information, any page/blog/article of somebody with an agenda can just point to "studies" that support their point (no matter how objectively wrong that point is) and it transforms informed discussions into popularity contests.
I don't think it's tinfoil hat time in terms of there being some sort of overall arching conspiracy about this, but it sure is concerning when you have a society like ours where media has many orders of magnitude more funding and impact than academia, I mean, even the word "academia" nowadays is overlaid with negative connotations (at least in North America) rather than the respect it should evoke: these days an actor/model stating an opinion can easily counterbalance hundreds of scientists/academics with fact-based studies.
Before the internet there were just as many crackpot theories around, however they were not presented as if they were the same as science, if you went to the library you wouldn't find in the astronomy section geocentric books shelved together with heliocentric and general relativity ones: now with your browser on the "internet library" you can find professional-looking sites pro/anti everything and without the tools learned in school/university how can you make sense of which is right? especially in cases where the science is counter-intuitive for a particular issue?
-- the cake is a lie
Kids will be familiar with whatever he/she has had time to play with. Ability to build legos doesn't come built it, kids who haven't seen one will still have to learn how to build them.
did you forget to take your meds?
I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
Hesiod, Eighth Century B.C.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
You're doing it wrong. LEGO kits are intended to be assembled into a model, then disassembled and reassembled into a different model. That's why the enclosed instruction book shows how to build more than one model. For a dramatization of how wrong you're doing it, go see The LEGO Movie.
We are talking about little kids. You tend to get them the Big Blocks instead.
... because little kids don't have the dexterity to use regular Legos. The reason two year old kids can use an iPad and aren't ready for standard Legos is because the latter requires more skill. TFA claims claims that exposing kids to technology is causing our civilization to spiral down the drain, but provides no evidence whatsoever, other than anecdotes and conjecture.
Actually, there are quite a few nice sets which I`ve purchased for my kids. I agree that there's a lot of bad sets out there, but I look at my old sets instructions advertisement pages, and there was also a lot of bad sets 30 years ago but we didn`t happened to purchase them either :)
http://www.lego.com/en-us/crea...
http://www.lego.com/en-us/crea...
http://www.lego.com/en-us/crea...
http://www.lego.com/en-us/tech...
Ok, that last one`s for me :)
"Kids these days can't even swipe a tablet, all wired-up as they are with these direct brain interfaces! It's terrible I tell you, terrible!"
In 2025, they probably will be stuck in their Buy 'N Large hover recliners, with drones delivering everything and informercials streamed directly to their heads-up or retinal displays. They won't need silly things like "interfaces" for antiquated notions like "choice".
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
There are three sizes, I think. The standard LEGO size, the Duplo size, and the Mega-block size. The last one is HUGE, and it's so big I'm not sure I see a point. My experience so far says they can hold and manipulate the Duplo by the time they are 18 months. Not expertly, but enough to put some pieces togethera, and there's nothing wrong with a little challenge. Plus, Duplo are far more reasonable to merge with the small LEGO size when they graduate, while Mega Block size are so big they're basically unrelated.
It also fails to acknowledge that LEGO is itself technology -- relatively modern, high technology in the grand scheme of humanity -- or provide any meaningful distinction between "good" technologies like verbal language and "bad" technologies like iPads.
As with virtually all "kids these days" rants it's nothing more than an attempt to relive the past by forcing it on today's young people.
I'm sure there's an App that simulates working with legos.
Neil is that you? Yeah yeah, it's me... Neil...
Except that you're actually wrong.
minifgures (lego people) and their tools/accessories aside, the models today are almost completely made from select colors of commodity pieces.
What's changed is that the range of commodity pieces has expanded some, and models in general tend to make more use of some more elaborate pieces that attach in ways which allow more articulation of the model as well as smaller pieces (meaning they favor plates over bricks).
Sure that X-wing may have a special R2-D2 minifigure and windshield piece, but the rest of it will be common plates and a few bricks, with some hinges for the S-foils.
Now if you're buying the $10 sets you're probably getting like 1-2 mini figures and a tree (or setting apropriate equivalent) and that may look like it's 90% custom molded tree pieces, but when you go for the bigger $60+ sets you get tons of structural pieces.
This is completely wrong. Here's the instructions to the latest X-Wing. Flip to the back and count the number of "special molds" yourself. Do you see anything in there that can't be used for anything but an X-Wing?
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
If a wooden block can be a car and a stick can be a gun, I'm gonna call shenanigans on this. It's not a limitation of the specialty pieces, but of the imagination.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I remember when I thought like you. Do yourself a favor and keep your vows to yourself so you won't feel like a fool when you start breaking them, one by one, until only a few remain. Real life is a lot different than that 'ideal' you initially think you can achieve. Some of your vows won't be achievable, and some will be exposed as gains in one area of your child's development at the sacrifice of others. If you're a decent parent you'll perpetually reassess your actions and rules, and take into account that your child is not your clone and won't necessarily respond in a predicted manner.
Just because the article is a terrible piece objectively and doesn't link to any hard data doesn't mean the data doesn't exist. There are plenty of data to suggest that tablet use isn't the best for kids' brains. Enough evidence to suggest that ANYTHING else would be better, including (OHMYGAWD) playing with LEGOs.
There's almost no point in it being a lego toy, because you're just assembling a crude model of an x-wing, and the only thing you can make with the set is...an x-wing. Why not just...play with a model x-wing?
Seriously... watch the lego movie... or hell just look at some of the sets they've released based on the movie.
I think this one illustrates my point:
http://static.indigoimages.ca/...
Take a good look at it. The 'goblet' piece is a gun. The wagon wheels are the engine turbines, the turbine housings are those molded castle tower pieces. The half-barrel is the pilots seat. Torches reworked into a missile launcher. The working catapult?... well they kept that.
They took a medieval gate and cart and turned it into something akin to a pod-racer, as an official set.
The lego movie and movie sets simultaneously agrees with all your complaints ... and then proves your conclusion wrong.
Granted a single small lego set is usually only much good for a particular model or a variation on a theme. But after you've got 5 or 6 lego sets especially if they are from different themes you can build pretty much anything. Medieval space ships, sailing ships out of space lego, Giant transforming robots out of lego city vehicles.
Honestly there were a bit of a bad spot in the late 90s where the lego wasn't as good, but the current sets and over the last 5-10 years are an absolute joy.
I recommend any parent with kids becoming lego aged to start with a basic bulk bucket. I think there's a yellow bucket out right now 600 basic bricks for $40 bucks.
Then you throw in a star wars or batman set or two so the kid has a couple minifigures, droids (my son loves r2d2s), light sabers, etc. And then build out from there.
The new lego master builder academy sets are BRILLIANT too.
http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Mas...
The instruction books alone are nearly with the price of entry.
My parents had me on technic sets before I hit third grade. Back in the days where a tv couldn't watch your kids that was the best way to keep them occupied for weeks on end. It was either that or puzzles, in which I had the horrific adventure of putting together a 1000+ piece space puzzle... the kind without any nebulae or anything that could give you a reference point. The only thing that was "easy" was the edge pieces. Now that I look back on that, it seems pretty evil, but that was fun for the times.
I came across these lego sets recently (the hero factory or something ones) and it cost 30 bucks for 300 pieces. Most of it was "pre-assembled" (a head was just a head piece, a shield just a shield piece, an arm was 3 pieces just because they wanted an elbow and a hand) - it was for ages 8-16... That's a goddamn joke.
Why do you get this wrong? The plural of Lego is Lego, how hard is that?
I'm going to go with this part:
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=54092c01
It can be the front of a plane or something else that looks like the front of a plane.
The rest of the parts in that set seem pretty useful though:
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?S=3182-1
Is your imagination broken dude? I could use that part for *TONS* of different models! Granted, it's gonna be a cockpit, but it doesn't have to be an airplane cockpit... It could be used on a racecar, submarine, spaceship, crane, whatever! (I think I would use it on a monorail - that would be fun!) You could also face it backwards or sideways for a very unique model! It could probably also prove useful somehow in a GBC module. (http://www.greatballcontraption.com/)
Yes, there are many specialized parts nowadays, but the trick is finding new and fun ways to use it.
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
We are talking about little kids. You tend to get them the Big Blocks instead.
... because little kids don't have the dexterity to use regular Legos. The reason two year old kids can use an iPad and aren't ready for standard Legos is because the latter requires more skill.
How did we go from building blocks for 2-year old kids to standard lego blocks? You know there is a difference, do you? If not, please STFU. Just to help you and those who sadly do not know the difference:
TFA claims claims that exposing kids to technology is causing our civilization to spiral down the drain,
TFA is not claiming that. You are claiming that it does, though.
but provides no evidence whatsoever, other than anecdotes and conjecture.
Anecdotes and conjecture are valid form of preliminary evidence with which to request further scrutiny of something.
Also, from personal anecdote (feel free to dismiss because ZOMFG anecdote!) kids at that early stage require specific stimulus to develop hand fine grained motor skills. Playing with sand, clay or building blocks (not standard lego blocks, but building blocks for toddlers) help do that.
Going into the (ZOMG!) anecdote: One of my nephews had a learning disability co-related to not developing hand fine motor skills, some type of proprioception problem related to ADHD/Asperger/Autism. He simply could not hold a pen without it falling off his fingers. Good fortune it was detected on time, and was put on specific corrective therapy to develop not just finger strength but the necessary coordination to do what he needed to do with his hands during that state of his body/mind development.
Feel free to dismiss this as you wish. Whatever gets your intellectual kicks.
With that said, I'm not against kids using technology. I was delightfully fascinated when I saw my older daughter (now 5) using my smart phone at the age of 2, and I'm fascinated how my youngest one (1.5 year old) fiddled her way into unlocking my phone (despite it being locked with a swipe-shape lock.)
But I keep my daughters away from technology if that precludes them from the other type of tactile-proprioceptive activities that have been developed over time to assist in their development: finger painting, puzzles, blocks, sculpting with silly putty, running around.
All those things are fun, but they are not just for fun. They have an evolutionary purpose.
There is a reason why kids play with soil instinctively. It is not just curiosity. It is the child mind and body instinctively seeking activities that trigger learning and development.
Ship's prow (upside down)
Several hinged for a claw.
Aerodynamic fairing around the parts of a vehicle that fits into the front of another vehicle to lock it into the assembly (c.f. the Phoenix from Battle of the Planets)
Scoops on a water wheel, or teeth on a rotary digger
So there's four off the top of my head in a couple of minutes without any brinks in reach to doodle with.
Stop trying to blame other people for your lack of creativity.
Offset vertical joints for a stronger structure (look at actual bricklaying)
Shims to close a gap due to rotation of peg axis.
Spot color
Yep. I really pissed off my relatives years ago when my daughter and I went to Christmas at their house. I brought every kid two things, a flashlight for reading in bed and a box of clay. The kids and I sat around for hours playing with the clay while the sparkly toys just sat there.
I thought that, until I had a kid.
The problem is once they're about a year old, there's nothing to do with them. They can't talk, they aren't old enough to understand the concept of playing with someone else...all they can really do is run around and bang into stuff.
By the time they're 6 months old, you can start teaching sign language; by the time they're 1, they'll have a sign vocabulary of about 20 - 30 words, and be starting to talk, using signs to clarify what those talk-like sounds mean. When my kids were 1-2, I had a blast with them; we played games, danced to music, talked about the shapes of clouds, etc. And then, since they were still young, they got their afternoon nap and I had a chance to go and do other things. While they couldn't understand the concept of playing with someone else, they had no problems playing with someone who was interested in doing what they found interesting (which was often getting said person to build a tower of blocks so they could knock it over, or grabbing puppets off of people's hands and throwing them across the room).
And yes; both my kids figured out how to use a touchscreen by 18 months too... we learned to keep the locks on and keep the devices out of reach except for under supervised use for limited time.
It might be too late for you now, but I'd highly recommend looking up baby sign language; while your kid doesn't have the muscular dexterity to talk to you clearly, their mind is still full of interesting thoughts that they just don't know how to communicate.
It is the same singular or plural.
Megablocks are not LEGOs... proper LEGOs... LEGOs... LEGOs... LEGOs...
Disclaimer: I am Danish
And you don't use LEGO as a mass noun? For shame!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Lego skills are very useful for engineering. I've been in software development 30+ years and still apply skills I learned from lego, lincoln logs, and erector sets in the 60s and 70s. You can use these sets to build almost identical looking structures in many ways . Some will fall over when you barely touch them. Some can be rolled and even tossed a short distance without falling apart. Software is the same. You can put classes together to make a robust & stable system, or use similar classes to make a similar looking fragile system.
An understanding of structural stability is the biggest lack I've seen in developers the last 10 years. Non-software engineers are generally better than software engineers right out of school because the physical engineers got some understanding of structures in school. You can't test stability in. You need to be aware of it in all phases - design, throughout implementation, and finding root causes when there are problems rather than just fixing the bug (which needs to be fixed but may or may not be the root cause).
For those too lazy to search, here's the video. ;-)