OK, So you hear it all the time. “My kid is more advanced than yours, or any other in his class” yeah, yeah, yeah. But in my case its true, j/k, but really…he is.
Anyway, I have decided that it is time for him to start practicing more computer skills. He had a computer class in his Kindergarten class but now in 1st grade his new school doesn’t offer it. He got a DS for Christmas and has impressed me with all the extras features he has learned to use on it. He showed me something I never knew before. So I got the extra laptop sitting around that hasn’t really been used since I got my new laptop a few months ago. I decided it was good enough for him. But Damsel and I are worried about just handing him a PC than can do, or see anything and everything the internet has to offer. I thought of putting a family safe firewall like Safe Eyes, or one of the others I have seen. But I find those to be a little over kill in some areas. They will actually block educational content too simply based on key words. Not that that’s all that bad, since I don’t really want him going to some sight that is too graphic for him even if it is educational.
Then there is the issue with the programs on the PC itself. There are a lot of things built into Windows that are not really kid friendly. Not inappropriate, just not very intuitive for a soon to be 7 year old. Email, is mostly web based now. Gone are the days when everyone HAD to have there email routed to either a proprietary email program (AOL) or to Outlook. I use Gmail and so does Damsel. and most of my family. But I don’t really want Jet running the web browser without at least a little supervision. And the whole point of this little experiment is for him to discover the computer for himself.
So I found a couple different KID Operating Systems and I will try them out over the next couple weeks and see which one will work best. I have already ruled out “Sugar” which is the OS on the “One Laptop Per Child” project. Most of the ones I find are for pre-school age children and well, my son is a little beyond that. So I will try to keep a log going here of what I have found and what program we like best.
Check back for updates.
