12 Jan
1999
12 Jan
'99
1:24 p.m.
At 02:34 PM 1/12/99 -0800, you wrote:
I think that an 8 year old would be best off with a
machine with CD-ROM
capability. And a good size stack of reference disks, including
Encyclopedia Brittanica, atlases, and several collections of literature.
Uh-oh, here goes Uncle Roger again...
There are a lot of *really* good educational programs out there nowadays.
Davidson, Learning Company, Br0derbund are some good names. They can
really help kids get ahead. My niece is already reading at 4yo thanks to
Interactive Reading Journey. (Not a record by any stretch, but no one is
really pushing her.)
I could go on for hours, but I won't...
There should also be WWW access, preferably with at
least minimal
graphics capability.
The younger the kid, the more they need graphics capability. Teenagers
don't really need it, no matter how much they beg for it (they just want to
visit whitehouse.com).
In the PC world, that would call for 386SX with VGA
video, and DOS 3.10
Or a Mac IIci, both of which will require access to older software.
Pentium or PowerPC is required for much of the good stuff you see at places
like ChumpUSA.
Used parts can be put together into a low-end/slow pentium for probably a
lot less than $500, but that's still more than $10 + shipping. And for a
dedicated task like learning a bit of programming, playing with some
graphics, and a few games, a C64/Atari 800/Apple II would be fine.
Also, BASIC, as maligned as it is, is useful for learning; I applied my
BASIC experience to make learning PERL a snap. (And BASIC is very useful
in its own right.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/
12 Jan
12 Jan
2:09 p.m.
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3:13 p.m.
What I did have was parents who encouraged me to
learn, who helped me
learn to read (I don't mean they forced books at me, but as soon as I
showed an interest in something they encouraged it), etc.
IMHO the ability to use a reference book is still essential. There are
plenty of books I use where there simply aren't equivalents on CD-ROM.
And there's no reason why a child shouldn't learn to use books as well.
-tony
Yup... and you can't put margin notes in a CDROM.
Which is why I told DEC to stuff the fiche they wanted me to use
daily and got my Field Service manager to let me order hard copy docs
on things I worked on almost daily, like TU77's and 78's...
(The official adjustment procedures for some things just plain
sucked and there were some field service tricks that cut the time to
get em working by 50% -- like using the windage techniques on RP06's
with the tunnel open and the Perch tester...)
Bill
---
Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a villain
in a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller
bpechter(a)shell.monmouth.com | pechter(a)pechter.ddns.org
13 Jan
13 Jan
12:16 p.m.
Tony Duell said...
|
|Hmmmm... I am convinced that the age a child starts to read, and the
|interest he takes in obtaining information has a lot more to do with the
|parents than with computer programs.
|
|I never had the benefit (or otherwise) of computer-aided learning. But I
|was still reading by the age of 3. And a couple of years later I was
|reading just about every electronics/engineering book I could get my
|hands on.
|
|What I did have was parents who encouraged me to learn, who helped me
|learn to read (I don't mean they forced books at me, but as soon as I
|showed an interest in something they encouraged it), etc.
Yes, yes, yes!
And parents who read, read, read to their kids from the early days.
I'm talking day 1, if not in the womb. (almost 8^) We encourage
everyone we know to do this. We have friends who never got much
education, whom most people consider (at best) a bit dense due to
their chromosomes. They read to their kids since they were born,
and their kids learning abilities are excellent.
I don't know about other countries, but the US could probably cut
its education budget in half within 10 years if everyone just read
to their kids and encouraged them in what they wanted to do.
-Miles
(my brain classifies as a classic computer, as do my wife's
and childrens')
2:09 p.m.
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12 Jan
12 Jan
3:35 p.m.
Well, I was reading before my fourth birthday, but there weren't any
(kid accessable) computers in 1959. I had to use paper. I thought
my mother was leaving out the good parts of the stories she was
reading to me, turned out she was reading me stories without any good
parts. It made me unpopular in school from kindergarten on, since I
was given full and unlimited use of the public library when I was
eight, since the librarians got tired of me hanging around when they
were trying to close and the round-trip home to get a permission note
from the parental unit cut seriously into my reading
time, especially
since if it was past dark said unit didn't want me going back
to the
library, so the rest of the evening was wasted.
I was 23 when I started programming computers, unless you count the
Digi-comp I. Other than that, a slide rule was my main tool through
high school, I bought my first calculator (a Novus Mathematician)
for half a month's pay when I was in the USAF.
Computers are good for a kid to learn. But books are critical.
Ward Griffiths
"the timid die just like the daring; and if you don't take the plunge then
you'll just take the fall" Michael Longcor
On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, Uncle Roger wrote:
At 02:34 PM 1/12/99 -0800, you wrote:
I think that an 8 year old would be best off with
a machine with CD-ROM
capability. And a good size stack of reference disks, including
Encyclopedia Brittanica, atlases, and several collections of literature.
Uh-oh, here goes Uncle Roger again...
There are a lot of *really* good educational programs out there nowadays.
Davidson, Learning Company, Br0derbund are some good names. They can
really help kids get ahead. My niece is already reading at 4yo thanks to
Interactive Reading Journey. (Not a record by any stretch, but no one is
really pushing her.)
I could go on for hours, but I won't...
There should also be WWW access, preferably with
at least minimal
graphics capability.
The younger the kid, the more they need graphics capability. Teenagers
don't really need it, no matter how much they beg for it (they just want to
visit whitehouse.com).
In the PC world, that would call for 386SX with
VGA video, and DOS 3.10
Or a Mac IIci, both of which will require access to older software.
Pentium or PowerPC is required for much of the good stuff you see at places
like ChumpUSA.
Used parts can be put together into a low-end/slow pentium for probably a
lot less than $500, but that's still more than $10 + shipping. And for a
dedicated task like learning a bit of programming, playing with some
graphics, and a few games, a C64/Atari 800/Apple II would be fine.
Also, BASIC, as maligned as it is, is useful for learning; I applied my
BASIC experience to make learning PERL a snap. (And BASIC is very useful
in its own right.) 
4:38 p.m.
On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, Ward D. Griffiths III wrote:
Well, I was reading before my fourth birthday, but
there weren't any
(kid accessable) computers in 1959. I had to use paper.
You wouldn't have had to use paper if you had been reading the right mags.
I know of at least three distinct computer-like things that were available
for under $40 in 1959: the Geniac/Tyniac/Brainiac (I'll count those as
one), the Calculo analog computer, and the Microlog.
I didn't have any of them when I was a kid either, but I wish I had.
Paper's cool too, though. I thought I was going to be an artist until
some sort of hormonal override kicked in.
Computers are good for a kid to learn. But books are
critical.
Books are OK. But I think the key is to present a kid with challenging
space to explore on her own. Reading is pretty passive. Interactive
computer instruction is less passive, but less rich than books and
generally too confined a space for exploration. The best possible
education: a laboratory, a bunch of reference manuals, and some compelling
problems to solve. But that's just a metaphor for life, I guess.
-- Doug
5:27 p.m.
Doug Yowza wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, Ward D. Griffiths III wrote:
When I was 3-4 years old, those magazines weren't available to me and
I didn't have much spare cash anyway. And I didn't develop interest
in mathematics until 3rd grade, when my teacher introduced me to it
in an attempt to get me to start passing arithmetic. (I went to
college as a mathematics major, but I _still_ hate arithmetic -- it's
why I carried my slide rule through high school, and hated that I
couldn't afford $400 for an HP-35 my junior year, it was faster and
_lighter_ than that 10" Pickett in leather case).
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
Well, I was reading before my fourth birthday,
but there weren't any
(kid accessable) computers in 1959. I had to use paper.
You wouldn't have had to use paper if you had been reading the right mags.
I know of at least three distinct computer-like things that were available
for under $40 in 1959: the Geniac/Tyniac/Brainiac (I'll count those as
one), the Calculo analog computer, and the Microlog. 
13 Jan
13 Jan
7:22 a.m.
>There should also be WWW access, preferably with
at least minimal
>graphics capability.
The younger the kid, the more they need graphics
capability. Teenagers
don't really need it, no matter how much they beg for it (they just want to
visit whitehouse.com).
I found it just the other way - as younger they are as less
exact high res and high reality visions they need. An 5 year
old child is satisfied when drawing a car or a house just by
using big blocks and symbols (PET), while a 14 year old don't
even look at a 280x192 display.
A young child has more free flowing imagination - and less
need for exact replication.
Gruss
H
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
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