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A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

kickscondor.com

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Re: A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

#12
post #10

[Chromebooks are the new fashion in elementary school. They are cheap; they are everywhere. And they are unusable by kids in kindergarten through, in some case, third grade.] iPad's are consumer devices and will not prepare our kids to be producers. I am surprised every time I see iPad's being used in schools. Chromebooks at least put kids in path of being producers rather than mere consumers of content.

They also have books. Should they have only white sheets of paper instead?

Re: A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

#14

What about plugging a mouse into the Chromebooks? I distinctly remember being in kindergarten and using a mouse as my pointer input. I played Treasure Mountain! and some other educational games. Kids are pretty capable and adept at picking up new things. We should be pushing forward with tech literacy while they're still young and not afraid of breaking technology. Touch screens are great because they provided a very…

Seriously. I was using a mouse at 3. This is a no brainer.

Re: A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

#15
post #11

I bought a Xiaomi Mipad 4 recently and honestly it's incredibly good https://www.mi.com/mipad4/ Snapdragon 660, 6000mAH battery, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage. The display is so-so 1920x1200, not the best but still good. And that was $180 from Aliexpress (The iPad Mini is $399)

Ditto. I bought the Mipad 3 from gearbest, and haven't looked back. Awesome little device for plane rides and keeping our little fella occupied during long car trips.

Re: A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

#16
post #12
post #10

[Chromebooks are the new fashion in elementary school. They are cheap; they are everywhere. And they are unusable by kids in kindergarten through, in some case, third grade.] iPad's are consumer devices and will not prepare our kids to be producers. I am surprised every time I see iPad's being used in schools. Chromebooks at least put kids in path of being producers rather than mere consumers of content.

They also have books. Should they have only white sheets of paper instead?

Dude, just point at a tree.

Re: A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

#17
post #10

[Chromebooks are the new fashion in elementary school. They are cheap; they are everywhere. And they are unusable by kids in kindergarten through, in some case, third grade.] iPad's are consumer devices and will not prepare our kids to be producers. I am surprised every time I see iPad's being used in schools. Chromebooks at least put kids in path of being producers rather than mere consumers of content.

I agree with the mentality that touch = consume and type = produce. The efficiency and imtimacy of user interaction of keyboards is simply unmatched with other competing input devices. Open-ness of platforms is secondary.

Re: A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

#18

This post doesn’t really explain what is so great about iPads for small children, and as far as I can tell doesn’t link to much external explanation about it. Maybe the author had some previous posts explaining this that regular blog readers know about as context? Is there some report [anecdotal, peer-reviewed, whatever] comparing kids’ trying to learn using an iPad vs. physical materials? What specific ideas or subj…

I agree in that I worry about how technology may impact our ability to concentrate deeply. I get this view from the book by Nicholas Carr called "the shallows"

I did however talk to an elementary teacher, she said the kids do the reading assignment on a tablet and she has a monitor where she can see at her desk what each individual is struggling with. I'm not sure more about how this works. Lots of enthusiasm from a long time teacher though.

Re: A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

#19

What about plugging a mouse into the Chromebooks? I distinctly remember being in kindergarten and using a mouse as my pointer input. I played Treasure Mountain! and some other educational games. Kids are pretty capable and adept at picking up new things. We should be pushing forward with tech literacy while they're still young and not afraid of breaking technology. Touch screens are great because they provided a very…

Great for normal users, awful for disabled users. A touchscreen is light-years ahead of mice for individuals who lack or are incapable of fine motor control skills.

Re: A Kindergartener’s Best Computer Is About to Die

#20
post #10

[Chromebooks are the new fashion in elementary school. They are cheap; they are everywhere. And they are unusable by kids in kindergarten through, in some case, third grade.] iPad's are consumer devices and will not prepare our kids to be producers. I am surprised every time I see iPad's being used in schools. Chromebooks at least put kids in path of being producers rather than mere consumers of content.

Chromebooke are more consumer than iPads. Can you run iMovie on a Chromebook? GarageBand or similar? How about all of the adobe design software for iPad? Or Concepts for drawing? How about Pages, Numbers Keynote? (Sure there are Google equivalents, but the argument is that iPad is for consumption and not creation.)

It’s 2013 thinking to suggest iPads are for content consumption and it’s ridiculous to assert that a Chromebook has any advantage for creation.

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