Learning Game Consoles for Young Children? 101
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."
Just don't forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Re:Other products (Score:3, Insightful)
On second thought, make sure you limit the amount of time they spend with those games...
/loads up the AppleIIe emulator
What happened to Legos (Score:2, Insightful)
Learning is inspired by internal motivation. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Has slashdot become anti-tech? (Score:3, Insightful)
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...