Kids & Technology

I was watching with great admiration my 5 yr old grand daughter play on my computer this morning. She didn't have school today (teacher in-service) so she stayed overnight. When she got up this morning, we played school (her favorite game) for a while and then she decided to play Kid Pix on my computer. It's amazing how quickly she picked up the skills she needed to use that application. Her 3 year old sister is right behind her in terms of skill development too. I've taught all ages of people on computers-preschoolers to senior citizens- and there's no question the kids have the edge. The seniors, bless their soles, have the most difficult time. The mouse is what causes their problems-along with trying to remember the differences between buttons, icons and folders. Added to that is the fact that PCs, unlike Macs, have TWO buttons on the mouse. Then there's the hand/eye coordination problem. It's very tough for them. On the other hand (no pun intended) Kids very quickly pick up on all of that stuff. As I mentioned, my grand daughter was using an application called Kid Pix. It can be confusing because the more an application can do, the more complicated it is and Kid Pix can do a ton of stuff. But none of it was a problem for my grand daughter. She quickly mastered it and started creating some really neat stuff (which can be seen on my website, http//georgeswebpage.com/kidswork. Sorry, couldn't resist the plug). The corollary to this story is the amount of learning that was going on while she was 'playing'. Some folks who don't know any better tend to believe that nothing can possibly be learned if it's so much fun. That, of course, is ridiculous. But rather than launch into a discussion of this misunderstanding here, I'll leave it for another blog piece. In the mean time it really doesn't matter how old you are. Keep trying and keep learning. Like me, it won't be easy but eventually you'll get it!