Volume 18, No. 8, Issue 125
Tutor, Tool and Tutee, Revisited
Here’s some good news. Helping a child learn to program a computer has never been easier. Why is this important? It helps to recall a bit of history.
In 1980, Robert Taylor, a professor at Columbia Teacher’s college, put together a collection of essays on educational technology (see http://bit.ly/d8bR8w). In the book introduction, he defined three roles for computing in education: as a tutor (something that teaches you), tool (something you use to enhance your abilities) and tutee (something you teach or program). Now remember — back then, computers had 1 MHz processors and floppy drives.
Thirty years later, children are walking around with more computing power than NASA had to land on the moon. One of Taylor’s classifications, the computer as tutee — is once again very useful. That’s why, for this month’s LittleClickers column (p. 4) we took a closer look at helping children become teachers of the computer, aka programmers, a job made easier thanks to Scratch, App Inventor for Android (page 12) and Singing Fingers (page 10) and TonePad (page 10). See page 4 for more tips on helping children become programmers.
January 12, 2010 – THQ Inc. today announced that Beat City for Nintendo DS — with 20 mini-games — will be available “spring 2010.” Players must find their rhythm in order to help Beat City. Using the stylus, players tap, swipe or hold on queue to the music’s beat in order to receive a high star rating within each mini-game. While players are tapping to the beat, they can watch the city transform. The better a player is at keeping the beat the more items are unlocked in the environment. Beat City is being developed by Universomo. Watch for an upcoming review.
This construction game for Windows, Mac and Wii lets you drag-and-drop sticky blobs to construct structures that look a bit like carbon molecules. You quickly learn which structures work best to solve a particular problem. On one puzzle, you must construct the highest tower using the fewest possible parts. Another presents you with a spinning set of teeth that requires a curved structure.
There’s a lot of different ways to solve the same problem, making this game addicting. Content includes 15 different varieties of blobs, each with different properties; enough to keep things interesting. Note that a Wii-Ware version is available, as a download. This is a fun way to introduce building dynamics to young science students. Created by 2D Boy (www.2dboy.com) for Brighter Minds Media. Winner of the 2010 KAPi Award. Teaches: science, creativity, building, physics, forces, potential energy. Brighter Minds Media, Inc. www.brightermindsmedia.com, $20. Best for ages 7-up.
Rating: 
or .96%
Created by Canadian developer Core Learning, the interface is based on the Basic and Junior Levels of Core Learning’s corefx (see review). Children can choose form 12 art tools, including tempera paint, acrylic paint, watercolor, chalk, crayon, oil pastel, colored pencil and so on. The clip art library includes hundreds of project ideas, for example, you create your own dog by dragging and dropping parts into place. Other features include progressive undo and redo features to allow for experimentation and a basic drawing tutorial. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
A screen capture of the main menu taken July 2009
Note: in 2009, Kerpoof was acquired by Disney, and the company was asked to make the creativity portal for Disney.com. See also: Disney Create.
Well-designed, free (with subscription teasers) and powerful, this online creativity kit has grown up since we first reviewed it nearly two years ago, when it was mostly an electronic flannel board. Recently acquired by Disney, the free, Flash-based site offers children five rich creativity activities, making it possible to make sketches, greeting cards, drawings, movies and multi-page stories with tools partially funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. The core of the site remains the electronic flannel board that makes it easy to drag and drop smart stickers onto over 80 backdrops. Each scene contains theme-related items that automatically resize, based on the scene’s perspective. For example, in the firehouse, you can position firefighters and equipment as needed. A firefighter positioned in the back of the picture looks smaller; when moved to the front, it grows. In addition, moving a light source — such as the sun — around the screen changes the lighting accordingly.
At various points in the experience, children are shown interesting items that are off limits unless they subscribe (e.g., “many of the items for sale in the Kerpoof store are for members only”). These premiums include the ability to form groups (e.g., for a teacher’s classroom), buddy painting (a very interesting collaborative drawing tool, for two children), and so on.
It is still easy to save and print work. Costs for membership range from $4.39/month to $44.79/year, although there is enough content (as of March 2009) available for free to make this site well worth the bookmark. Please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
- Reading: “SMART Table in my Classroom – My Conclusions | ICT in my Classroom” ( http://bit.ly/8sFzey ) #
- Watching: By way of Dave Maki, the video I just showed Ned Davis for NJECC (Sweet Georgia Brown & traktor http://bit.ly/6PmO7s ) #
- Watching: By way of Dave Maki, the video I just showed Ned Davis for NJEC (Sweet Georgia Brown & traktor http://bit.ly/6PmO7s ) #
What’s colorless, odorless and has been silently seeping into your child’s backpack, classroom, playroom and library? Your child’s digital future. After 25 years of rosy predictions from experts, there are signs that the long-awaited tipping point for technology & learning has arrived. If you’re one of the many impatient people—like me— who have been waiting for that LED at the end of tunnel, I think that this time it is really happening. Here’s why.
• Batteries. For the first time, batteries are able to power a netbook through a six-hour school day on a single charge. They’re smaller, lighter and powerful; the heart and lungs of iPods, Nintendo DSis, toys and netbooks. See the Cinemin, on page 20 (November issue) for example.
• LEDs. (Light Emitting Diods) are molded into your child’s shoes, and lighting the earrings on the new Dora Links doll.
• Wi-Fi. Thanks to eRate, most schools were wired years ago. Unfortunately the Internet never made it to the child’s desktop. There are signs this is starting to change. For the first time in her K-12 education, my daughter, a high school senior, is now encouraged to bring her laptop to school. And half of her teachers are using Moodle for assignments.
• The App store and Google Ads. Small publishers can make money from their interactive ideas, and reach their intended audience, sidestepping the retail bottleneck.
• Cloud computing. Google’s gmail, YouTube, Facebook and Flickr have earned the trust of the masses, including many of our children who are flocking to games like FarmVille (page 21).
• Flash 10. It used to be that online animation chugged. Not anymore. I just previewed a virtual world for children that is fast, responsive and — for the first time— is in 3D.
• Kinesthetic (motion based) interfaces. The Wii was magic. This year, there’s more. Besides the Wii-Motionplus, there’s Microsoft’s Project Natal, which uses cameras to detect motion. Interface guru Jakob Nielson points out two motion-based Windows 7 features: “Snap” (the ability to resize open Windows) and “Shake” (grab a window, hold your mouse button and give it a shake to hide the windows behind it). Nielson writes, “Both may herald a renaissance for the gestural interaction styles.”
• Multitouch. Apple’s multitouch/accelerometer combination is “the perfect storm” for children’s interactivity. Compare it to the DSi monotouch screen and you have “dumb touch” and “smart touch” from this point forward. Have a look:
Multitouch at NECC 2009
• There’s a Wii in the Whitehouse. Barack Obama is the first president to type a book on a computer, use a Blackberry and post speeches on YouTube. Both of his daughters play video games. This could open the door for more research and policy related to interactive media.
Now that the digital future has arrived, what does it mean? For one, there will be a lot more to review. It’s safe to say that 2010 will bring a surge in new children’s apps, sites, games and toys, and we’re ready to critique them. Enjoy the issue.
W. Buckleitner, Editor
- Looking at: “YouTube – ScribbleNauts E3 Demonstration” ( http://bit.ly/24DgHa ) #