mfrydenb@cvbnet.UUCP (Mark Frydenberg, x MS 4-1) (05/25/90)
From article <36512@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, by brand@janus.Berkeley.EDU (Graham Brand): > A friend of mine has an8 or 9 year old son with a slight > learning disability. She has asked me for suggestions for computers > and software that she might buy to help him. I instinctly answered > that I thought that an Apple is probably what she should get but > had no suggestions to make about software. Can any of you enlighten > me? > An Apple ii c/gs/e.... is probably a good choice. There's a lot of Sesame Street series of software for learning numbers and letters, and phonics which is quality stuff. Also, Sunburst makes great "problem solving" software such as "The Factory" (builds sequencing and other skills) and "Kings Rule" (builds pattern recognizing skills). Most of these should be available at computer or department stores or "toys r us" type of stores. I should mention that the same software is available for the Commodore 64 - a powerful machine (not as diverse, perhaps as the Apple ii) but at a cost these days, of about $100-$150 new (as compared to $200 a few years ago) plus another $200 for a disk drive, and add in some more $$ for a monitor (or television set). Read misc.forsale -- seems that there's always someone who bought a C64 a few years ago and graduated something else who wants to sell their whole setup... > I have a question also. I am looking for LOGO programs for > my 6 year old that he could run on my '386 machine. I should > appreciate pointers there as well. > C64 has a couple of good versions of Logo (Terrapin/Logowriter), and there's a number of Logo's for the Apple (Terrapin/LCSI/Logowriter). The IBM PC has LogoWriter and and LCSI version as well. Good luck... > Cheers, > -Graham Cheers, Mark
ergo@netcom.UUCP (Isaac Rabinovitch) (05/27/90)
brand@janus.Berkeley.EDU (Graham Brand) writes: > I have a question also. I am looking for LOGO programs for >my 6 year old that he could run on my '386 machine. I should >appreciate pointers there as well. You might want to have a look at Brian Harvey's *Computer Science Logo Style, Volume 1* (MIT Press). Not that this is the right book for a six year old, but there's an appendix in the back with a good, simple discussion of various Logo dialects. According to Harvey, there are two main dialects of Logo, the one designed by Logo Computer Systems, Inc., and MIT Logo. Harvey prefers LCSI Logo because it's consistent with the kind of teaching he does, but I get the impression that MIT Logo is preferred by most (but not all!) people who work with children. This is probably because MIT Logo makes some of its basic constructs more intuitive at the cost of making the language definition a little more complex. I've not actually used any MS-DOS Logos, but judging from their ads, Harvard Associates (Cambridge, MA) PC Logo is MIT Logo. List price is $100, but Programmer's Connection ((800) 336-1166) sells it for $90, including postage (and they're very good about giving advice and info to even small customers). Apparently the only LCSI Logo for MS-DOS is IBM Logo, and it costs more than twice as much. For my part, I'm still deciding whether I want to work through Harvey's book. I mean, it's a good book, but $250 for the language...