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From: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,misc.kids
Subject: Re: Mac Software for children
Message-ID: <2146@sputnik.COM>
Date: Mon, 2-Nov-87 02:14:35 EST
Article-I.D.: sputnik.2146
Posted: Mon Nov  2 02:14:35 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Nov-87 23:52:19 EST
References: <10486@duke.cs.duke.edu>
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Reply-To: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer)
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In article <10486@duke.cs.duke.edu> mps@duke.UUCP (Michael P. Smith) writes:
>Christmas is coming, and I'm thinking of getting some software for my
>Mac 512KE that my children will enjoy and learn from.  They both enjoy
>playing with it, especially my 4.5 year old, who is quite adept at
>inserting and ejecting disks, opening and quitting applications, and
>the like.

I don't think I've ever seen greater evidence of what an amazing machine the
Mac is than my friend's 3.5 year-old daughter walking into the room we were
sitting in, flipping on the Macintosh, plugging in a disk and starting (and
then using!) MacPaint.  Yikes!  Soon the 10 year-olds will be competing for
our computing jobs :-).

I digress... one thing I am amazed at, in all the attention that has
surrounded HyperCard, is that it is rarely (if ever) mentioned as a
fantastic tool for education of children.  Bill Atkinson, the creator of
HyperCard, has constently harped on what a great education program it can
be.  It's very easy for parents to create guided stories and primers for
their children -- I think of the two shareware stack's I've seen (Laura's
letters and the cat adventure) give the child a wonderful chance to
interactively view the story or the lesson, with built-in sound effects.

Of course, Hypercard pretty much demands 1 Meg of memory; and for parents
who want to have the computer say things when a button is pressed on the
screen, a sound digitizer (~$100) would be very helpful, though MacInTalk
could be used instead (a computer-generated voice, but not as clear as
digitized sound).  And a hard drive would probably be neccessary after a
while (though it is getting to be de rigeur for a Mac to have a hard drive).
But if you have the drive and the 1 Meg, the $49 investment into HyperCard
(along with Danny Goodman's HyperCard Handbook) could be a wonderful
construction kit for parents to create their own "learning programs" for
their kids.

                    "He's a bit too theatrical
                     for my taste."
                                             "Mr. Rogers is too theatrical
                                              for your taste, darling..."

                                        Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET:     moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
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CREDO:        You gotta be Cruel to be Kind...
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