6029334@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Robert Trevor) (05/02/88)
If anybody has experience with good quality (semi-)educational Macintosh programs for preschoolers (say under 5 yrs), I'd appreciate hearing from you. When we return to Australia in July I'd like to take a supply home for my daughter. (She's not quite 2 yet, but the availability and pricing of software Down Under is not the best.) I'm not a big believer in 'hunt em and kill em' type computer games, but am interested in programs that can teach hand/eye co-ordination, name/shape recognition, etc skills as well as provide some fun. I really don't know anything about this type of software, so will be most grateful for any pointers. (PD, shareware, commercial, or stackware all fine.) Thanks for your help, Rob. ROB TREVOR DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRINCETON, NJ 08544 USA
larryha@tekig5.TEK.COM (Larry Hattery) (05/03/88)
In article <5101@pucc.Princeton.EDU> 6029334@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes: >If anybody has experience with good quality (semi-)educational Macintosh >programs for preschoolers (say under 5 yrs), I'd appreciate hearing from >you. I bought MacEdgeII a couple months ago and my kids (4, 6, & 8) enjoy it a lot. It has a lot of configuration options and spans their age group quite nicely. In fact I'd say it would probably be good from about 3 - 12. The pacakge includes a variety of memory, reading, alphabet, and math games. The package follows the mac interface pretty well and is very consistent between the various games. None of the games support desk accessories, but this is probably more a feature than a bug, since you probably don't want kids messing with DAs anyway. The only thing I would like them for is access to the control panel to turn the sound down. My only complaints are that it is copy protected, which made it difficult to get installed on my hard disk, and that the default settings are not conifgurable. So every time you play a game, you need to reconfigure it according to the child's preferences (i.e. speed, sound, difficulty, etc.) I'd like it better if it kept track of the childrens names and configured itself to where they left off. Another rather bothersome part of some of the math games is the graphics tend to be wasteful of the children's time. They are cute the first time, but are distracting after awhile. By setting the speed up, the graphics do get out of the way more quickly. Another problem I've experienced is the sound drivers will occationally get stuck in the on position and there is no way to turn them off once this happens. Don't let all these negative comments turn you off, I do think that this is one of the better programs I've seen for children. Another one I've seen and played with, but have not yet bought is Kid's Time. It seems to be pretty well thought out and allows some extensibility, but seemed geared more for younger children 3 - 8. This one has a dot-to-dot game which would be quite good for teaching mouse coordination. -- Larry E. Hattery Tektronix Inc. larryha@penguin.PEN.TEK.COM M/S 47-704 Portable Instruments Division PO Box 500 (503)627-1225 days Beaverton, OR 97077