On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Gary C Martin <[email protected]> wrote: > On 27 Feb 2009, at 20:57, Caroline Meeks wrote: > >> Today I visited a computer lab at a school in Boston where 3-5 year >> olds (the PreK class) were using the computers in the computer lab. > > Nice feedback. Just wanted to raise the 'know your audience' scope, > isn't 3-5yrs out of previous Sugar design scope?
That may be, but if so it is a fundamental error. We have evidence of children learning and loving Record at age two. I am working on an iconic tile set for Turtle Art, in order to experiment with teaching it to preschoolers. We know from the work of Omar Khayyam (sic) Moore in the early 1960s that children can learn to read and write at a keyboard at age two, with some combination of computer and human assistance. We have almost no idea of what else is possible for preschoolers. Another interesting line of research is in teaching infants sign language. They can apparently construct sentences six months before they can say words. How we might adapt computers to do any of this will require considerable thought and experiment. > I though it was more > like 6-16yrs? I have seen statements varying among K-6 (~5-11) 1-6 (~6-11) K-12 (~5-17) 1-12 (~6-17) I'm holding out for something like ages 0-11. ^_^ > Saying that, I'd be very happy to be able to lower the > age barrier to entry, but it gets tough not to loose other features > (i.e I say 3-5yrs would be a non-multitasking user interface, one > activity at a time, no switching, just stopping, and back to home). Yes, more thought and experimentation required. > --Gary > >> The teacher tried to get them to use Kidspirations to look at and >> stamp bugs but they rebelled. All they wanted to do was use KidPix. -- Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. http://earthtreasury.net/ (Edward Mokurai Cherlin) _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
