The AntiClimax
After all that initial Excitement, Today was really disappointing...
1. The kid who was able to discover how to start the computer was unable to reproduce a previous action. I guess he is under some kind of severe pressure. Maybe he hasn't had enough sleep.
2. I showed him some really cool movies and he was saying Wow. Then suddenly stopped and said. "Nanage computer madbeku"... "I want to work on the computer." It felt like a 3 year old kid and a 30 year old soul was trapped in the same body. Would plonking keys on the keyboard to produce 'work' bring any joy in a 3 year old's mind? At least I can't think why. He was adamant and I had to give him wordpad to type. Accidentally he figured out that using the up and down arrow keys changes selections in the start menu. He was excited and I can easily understand why. That is what a child would be excited about.
3. Unfortunately I have switched to preach mode. I had to distract him to Paintbrush... and began to unnecessarily "teach" how to draw. Then came a little delight. He named all the colors in the palette.... The colors were mostly right... At least I did not know any better than him;-). I showed him how to draw eliipses. He calls them "balloons". Fine with me. The mouse is too large for his hands, and controlling is still difficult. He now really likes paintbrush. But my focus is on making him like the process of self learning without preaching. But now I am wavering from it.
4. Towards the end ofthe session, his mother had come... During the course of the chitchat, she reminded me that she was showing her kid how to play games on the cell phone and I could show the same on the computer... Now I am not against, gaming... In fact, I spent half of my engineering playing games like Caesar and Age of Empires and was able to perform to my satisfaction. But I dont want the kid to equate Computers with games. It is always better to present a sober picture of the computer as a tool to do many "interesting" things including playing games. Else these kids will think "COMPUTERS=GAMES" and at about 12 or maybe earlier, his friends will teach him, "COMPUTERS=GAMES+PORN". Rather than using the computer as the tool, they now become Entertainment gadgets. At least that is how it appears to me.
On the extreme you have multiple occurances of children starting malpractices ranging from online gambling, porn, cults etc. to the other end where parents track children's every movement using GPS. I hate both extremes.
5. By the time the session was over, he was so attached to Paintbrush, that his mom had to bribe him with a "Happy dent"... In fact he warned me that he would carry the computer home and never give it back.
6. Another funny observation... the kid knows only Uppercase. I was wondering why the kid knew everything on the keyboard but few things on the monitor. Poor Kid... not his fault. He knows more than he is expected to know. Problem is that I am dumber than I thought I was :-))))
1. The kid who was able to discover how to start the computer was unable to reproduce a previous action. I guess he is under some kind of severe pressure. Maybe he hasn't had enough sleep.
2. I showed him some really cool movies and he was saying Wow. Then suddenly stopped and said. "Nanage computer madbeku"... "I want to work on the computer." It felt like a 3 year old kid and a 30 year old soul was trapped in the same body. Would plonking keys on the keyboard to produce 'work' bring any joy in a 3 year old's mind? At least I can't think why. He was adamant and I had to give him wordpad to type. Accidentally he figured out that using the up and down arrow keys changes selections in the start menu. He was excited and I can easily understand why. That is what a child would be excited about.
3. Unfortunately I have switched to preach mode. I had to distract him to Paintbrush... and began to unnecessarily "teach" how to draw. Then came a little delight. He named all the colors in the palette.... The colors were mostly right... At least I did not know any better than him;-). I showed him how to draw eliipses. He calls them "balloons". Fine with me. The mouse is too large for his hands, and controlling is still difficult. He now really likes paintbrush. But my focus is on making him like the process of self learning without preaching. But now I am wavering from it.
4. Towards the end ofthe session, his mother had come... During the course of the chitchat, she reminded me that she was showing her kid how to play games on the cell phone and I could show the same on the computer... Now I am not against, gaming... In fact, I spent half of my engineering playing games like Caesar and Age of Empires and was able to perform to my satisfaction. But I dont want the kid to equate Computers with games. It is always better to present a sober picture of the computer as a tool to do many "interesting" things including playing games. Else these kids will think "COMPUTERS=GAMES" and at about 12 or maybe earlier, his friends will teach him, "COMPUTERS=GAMES+PORN". Rather than using the computer as the tool, they now become Entertainment gadgets. At least that is how it appears to me.
On the extreme you have multiple occurances of children starting malpractices ranging from online gambling, porn, cults etc. to the other end where parents track children's every movement using GPS. I hate both extremes.
5. By the time the session was over, he was so attached to Paintbrush, that his mom had to bribe him with a "Happy dent"... In fact he warned me that he would carry the computer home and never give it back.
6. Another funny observation... the kid knows only Uppercase. I was wondering why the kid knew everything on the keyboard but few things on the monitor. Poor Kid... not his fault. He knows more than he is expected to know. Problem is that I am dumber than I thought I was :-))))
posted by Unknown @ 9:45 PM
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