I certainly know the argument for waiting for children to have access to the digital world as stated in the Alliance for Children Report, "Computers and Children", and "Fool's Gold - A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood."If I did not know that my 9 month old grandson, Ilan, had a home where rich experiences with attentive parents was commonplace, then I might not have done what I did. Ilan and my daughter, Jessica, are from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, visiting for a few days. Jess is a physician in the Chapel Hill area and my son-in-law, Sal, is a new assistant dean for student affairs at the University of North Carolina. Ilan is getting to the age where he likes to bang on the keys of his dad's new laptop. So my thought was, why not have an older computer that is made just for that purpose, one that you wouldn't be worried so much if it got damaged . . . so I cleaned off one of the g3 iBooks I had purchase a couple of years ago, added free AlphaBaby, TuxPaint, and an icon with a link to Starfall. At this point, I suspected that AlphaBaby would be of interest, providing visual and audio feedback to whacking the keyboard. And though I caught Ilan just before he was ready for a nap, we weren't disappointed in his enthusiasm.
What other good baby software is out there?
But the real question is this:
Was I a bad grampa for introducing this device so early in baby Ilan's life? What do you think?
Another Question:
What do we lose by moving learning to machines?
See earlier post: Read Aloud and Baby Einstein
