SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET.UUCP (04/02/87)
I'm in favor of creating a variety of software exeriences for youngsters. Holding interest is one of the primary problems for anyone seeking to "educate" children. Hence, I don't reject the idea of GameMaker in the least, but it is NOT a substitute for Logo. Logo is a lot more than turtle graphics, and although Logo has some musical abilities, actually creating musical routines (especially on an Apple without an ALF board or other such audio enchancement) is rather poor - an ordinary piano is a far better alternative for that. Turtle graphics really are simply a vehicle a child (or anyone else) can use to create something. Logo is, in fact, a subset of LISP, the favored language of artificial intelligence applications, which has compuational and list manipulation powers not often immediately appreciated. For instance, junior high and high school students might find it useful to use Logo to graph mathematical functions (a small child can write the code to accomplish that). As I said before, Logo can do some rather sophisticated manipulations of text - I can program it to write better poetry than I ordinarily can produce (not much of a challenge I suppose, plain old prose is more my speed). If your interested in a breadth of experiences that take advantage of a computer to do things not easily done with musical instruments, typewriters, or chalk on the driveway. Look into Fantavision (REALLY amazing and extremely creative although I find it difficult to deal with it without a mouse) and Where in the World (also the new one Where in the USA) is Carmen Sandiego. I think Rocky's Boot is pretty amazing (it's the sneakiest way to teach Boolean logic I've ever seen - I'm told it's assigned in at least one very well known engineering school). For those needing further challenge, there's Robot Oddessy (more of the same, but even more complex). Someone asked about software for a 4 year old. Aside from some of Dan Watt's exercises that a 4 year old can use, even if it'll be a couple of years before he's old enough to analyze the program, there are several really good programs from the Learning Company (i.e., Gertrude's Secrets, lots of nice puzzles), and I've yet to see the 4 year old that doesn't like the Children's Television Workshop programs (SpotLight requires a joystick, but my favorite is Mix and Match which requires only the Apple, a color monitor helps). Four probably isn't too young to start Master Type; my daughters were 6 and 7, but that's mainly because they got to be that old before Daddy brought home the computer. I've insisted that the children not get into bad habits and learn to use the keyboard with the proper fingers. Now I have a 10 year old who types 40 words a minute and uses the Bank Street Writer to produce 2500 word short stories solely for her own amusement. Looking through the children's box of disks at the successes and the failures, I also recommend Paul Whitehead Teaches Chess (it's as good a teacher as the ads say, but it can't play chess at Sargon III's level), Police Artist (from Sir Tech, if it's still around; it's very good for memory), and the Law of the West (a video game with a difference, if girls like it, boys'll really love it).