K-12 goes Squeak
Kid Stuff for me would be that I am the head of a family of four, including a 5 year old and a 7 year old as of 2004.
I have been trying to keep an eye on something usable on the computer that would engage the creativity and enthusiasm of the 5-10 year old crowd. (I know, I know, the computer is no substitute for playing ball outside in real live sunshine, step... away... from... the... computer... I do encourage that, really!)
There are various JumpStart titles, which are OK. But it's still less creation and more playing a game somebody else wrote. I Found an excellent beginner chess game called Learn to Play Chess with Fritz and Chesster. Online, there's disney, and so forth. Sites like this that use flash to provide "games" are OK and they've certainly come a long way from the dawn of web time.
But... playing canned computer games, even those billed as educational software titles, is not the kind of child brain activity level I had in mind -- I was hacking out BASIC programs on my Atari pre-teen and up. (I was fortunate enough to get to play with the Atari 800 series of computers while growing up, but not fortunate enough to be at the helm of the Atari 800's successor when it came out, the Amiga series) Thus, what kind of authoring / creation environment might have a shot at prying the 5-10 year old crowd away from the Nintendo(s)/PlayStation(s)/GameBoy(s)? "Look kids, see what happens when you type in '10 PRINT HELLO WORLD 20 GOTO 10" likely as not will draw blank stares and fidgeting.... "are we done seeing something cool yet? Can I play Zelda now?" I had thought about REALBasic. Would prefer something that's free or inexpensive, though, which REALBasic basically isn't. And I don't think that's targeted toward a dynabook type of experience, which is what I'm after. That being the case, consider the source...
Have been looking at squeak and the info on squeakland lately. Lots of good things going on with the continuing journey of the original SmallTalk-ers as pertains to childhood education, learning and further attempts to do cool dynabook things. Hit the School Stuff and Kids Play links on squeakland for more info. More to come, hopefully, if the kids can, in fact, be pried away from the game consoles. step... away... from... the... Nintendo...
