It's somewhat odd, as a low media, Waldorf loving, nature oriented parent to find myself in the position of reviewing technology products. But, my goal and that of many of the experts I espouse, has never been to completely cut off children from technology but rather to delay it and limit it.
So, I'm branching out a bit here as my son gets older. I'm letting him play on the computer!
Not a fan of screen time for young children and frightened by an image of him glued to a gameboy, like so many children we know, my husband and I have kept him away from the computer...more or less. Over the last year though he has had a few opportunities to play educational software games on computers outside the home. We're getting quite lenient.
So, I thought it might be fun to review some educational software for kids. I, of course, worked in children's educational software for one of the early players in the field, Knowledge Adventure, back in the days before I has kids so do know something about the field. I was sent Mia's Reading Adventure:The Bugaboo Bugs, a Kutoka product to review and warily loaded it onto my computer.
And waited.
And waited.
After perhaps 5 minutes the animated story got to the point and the game started. The characters, Mia and her friends were cute and, important to me, used age appropriate language showed respect and modeled good behavior...something I find lacking in many recently produced popular books and videos.
On the other hand, the game seemed much more focused on developing the type of eye-hand coordination needed to successfully play video games and less on developing actual reading skills.
I played the intermediate version which was not advanced enough for my 6-year-old, though the program is rated for ages 5-9. I, in general found that much of this software was entertainment related as opposed to skill building, so that was a bit of a disappointment.
For parents with reluctant readers I would recommend this program. The high level of entertainment value would certainly help children not interested in books. The refreshingly sweet and innocent characters enable parents to not have to "undo" any undesirable language or attitudes our kids pick up from much of popular culture!
For those just hoping to supplement an already eager reader, this may not be the appropriate software, but for entertainment value only, its fine.
Like This post? Want To Share it?
Submit it to one of the newer social bookmarking sites geared for women and/or the green lifestyle.
Even if you don't submit this post...check them out for posts on topics that interest not-quite-crunchy parents! Click on the icons below.
Or share this post on traditional social book marking sites.
Did you enjoy this post…or at least found it interesting?
2 comments:
Hi MC!
wanted to point out that the "waiting" was the install time—this definitely varies greatly on the machine one has. I am sure you noticed that once installed the game starts very fast.
All "modern" games have a "big" install, because they have "big" graphics. :-)
Also, I also wanted to make sure you saw that you could just go to the educational parts of the software directly if you want instead of going through the whole adventure. I was not certain that you had seen that after reading your review.
Good point about the wait time- I should have clarified.
Also thanks for noting that it was possible to go into the educational adventures directly.
Post a Comment