Stunts (in eXoDOS) - a car-driving game from previous millennium, but it allows you to edit your own levels
Sauerbraten—a first-person shooter, but more importantly a very simple 3D editor; my kids only use it to edit
...in hindsight, I wish I replaced Inkscape with Paint.NET and/or Pencil2D, but the general idea was to introduce the computer as a tool for creating your own projects; and when kids start playing games, to prioritize ones that come with level editors. I think I succeeded here. (But I couldn’t find enough good games with level editors.)
These days my kids are programming in Scratch; and they find their own games online, so that part is no longer under my control.
We also played The Legend of Kyrandia (also in eXoDOS), but there was no educational goal behind it, only showing the kids the kind of games I used to play.
tux racer (penguin sledding) and supertux (platformer) are games with level editors, my three year old loves supertux and its level editor but it is a well-put together enough game to start to be addicting to him.
Whenever he sees me working, I’m on a terminal, and he wanted to learn how to use a terminal. I taught him how to type ``` sl sl -a sl; sl sl | lolcat cowsay hi ``` etc and he found this very amusing. Often will demand to “make a train” if I get the laptop out where he can see me.
I am curious about your experience/opinion on this thing:
A computer can be a tool (editing or programming or learning), or a toy (playing games). I believe that it is better to learn using it as tool first, and as a toy later… and the social networks ideally as late as possible.
That’s because if you don’t know about the games, the editors are also lots of fun: a three years old child is excited about painting on the screen. But if you already know about the games, the editors are boring; it’s like eating your cake first, and then being given broccoli.
Some people say that if your kids play Minecraft or Roblox, it will encourage them to start making their own levels. Sounds kinda plausible, but in my (very limited) experience, I didn’t see such thing actually happen.
Once we organized a vacation together with some other families whose parents also work in IT. Each child had their own notebook there, so we made one big common computer room for kids. It was a lot of fun, the kids showed each other what they were doing. But my children were alternating between playing games, painting, and programming; children from the other families just kept playing Minecraft all the time.
So I recommend teaching your kids to use the computer as an editor before they join school (because afterwards they will take their lessons from their classmates). I’m curious if you agree or disagree.
Here are some computer programs that my kids used before they started school:
Tux Paint—a simple drawing program that a 3 years old child can handle (or 2 years old with touchscreen)
Sound Recorder—they enjoyed recording their songs and stories; later we burned the best ones on CD and distributed them to the family
Paint 3D—sadly, Microsoft killed it :(
Inkscape—vector graphics, okay this one was too difficult for them; they made a few pictures but didn’t really enjoy it
Pocket platformer—create your own simple platform games
Stunts (in eXoDOS) - a car-driving game from previous millennium, but it allows you to edit your own levels
Sauerbraten—a first-person shooter, but more importantly a very simple 3D editor; my kids only use it to edit
...in hindsight, I wish I replaced Inkscape with Paint.NET and/or Pencil2D, but the general idea was to introduce the computer as a tool for creating your own projects; and when kids start playing games, to prioritize ones that come with level editors. I think I succeeded here. (But I couldn’t find enough good games with level editors.)
These days my kids are programming in Scratch; and they find their own games online, so that part is no longer under my control.
We also played The Legend of Kyrandia (also in eXoDOS), but there was no educational goal behind it, only showing the kids the kind of games I used to play.
Second on Tux Paint
tux racer (penguin sledding) and supertux (platformer) are games with level editors, my three year old loves supertux and its level editor but it is a well-put together enough game to start to be addicting to him.
Whenever he sees me working, I’m on a terminal, and he wanted to learn how to use a terminal. I taught him how to type
```
sl
sl -a
sl; sl
sl | lolcat
cowsay hi
```
etc
and he found this very amusing. Often will demand to “make a train” if I get the laptop out where he can see me.
I am curious about your experience/opinion on this thing:
A computer can be a tool (editing or programming or learning), or a toy (playing games). I believe that it is better to learn using it as tool first, and as a toy later… and the social networks ideally as late as possible.
That’s because if you don’t know about the games, the editors are also lots of fun: a three years old child is excited about painting on the screen. But if you already know about the games, the editors are boring; it’s like eating your cake first, and then being given broccoli.
Some people say that if your kids play Minecraft or Roblox, it will encourage them to start making their own levels. Sounds kinda plausible, but in my (very limited) experience, I didn’t see such thing actually happen.
Once we organized a vacation together with some other families whose parents also work in IT. Each child had their own notebook there, so we made one big common computer room for kids. It was a lot of fun, the kids showed each other what they were doing. But my children were alternating between playing games, painting, and programming; children from the other families just kept playing Minecraft all the time.
So I recommend teaching your kids to use the computer as an editor before they join school (because afterwards they will take their lessons from their classmates). I’m curious if you agree or disagree.