One iPhone or iPod Touch per Child

[whmurray]

People who read widely in this forum may have come across one of my rants on the topic of this thread.

You may know that I believe that, while technology will not help children get good grades in school, it teaches better than schools. This thread is for people to post observations, stories, and application recommendations about iPods/Phones in tuition.

[whmurray]

The authors of this app built it for their daughter when they observed that she "used their iPhone better than they." I used it day before yesterday to entertain toddlers in the barber shop. It uses colors, shapes, numbers and letters to entertain and enlighten the child.

A voice prompt asks the child to touch a particular icon on the screen. If the child touches the correct one, she is rewarded with applause. Five corrects earn them a sticker which they can place anywhere on their page that they wish.

While the app starts with only three things from which to choose, it progresses with the number of stickers.

Kids love it. Not only do they progress within the game, but they progress in the length of time that they can focus. While I am sure that there are similar games for the PC, the Touch exploits the child's natural tendency to point to the answer.

This "free" game comes with pointers to similar games by the same authors.

[whmurray]

http://forum.theiphoneblog.com/showt...82#post1510082

At their worst, i.e, content free games, teach. They teach rules, focus, concentration, perhaps fairness, teamwork, and motivation.

Really young children can learn color, shapes and numbers from UNO. All of us learn joy.

"One iPod Touch per child."

[JShultz89]

Its a good concept but there should be an easy way to restrict particular functions on the iPhone to protect some children.

[whmurray]

Originally Posted by JShultz89

Its a good concept but there should be an easy way to restrict particular functions on the iPhone to protect some children.

Apple says, "It may have content that will offend some under seventeen." I was glad to hear that there is content that will offend anyone under seventeen. I thought that they were bullet proof. For those of you who cannot remember being under seventeen, I suggest that you watch the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. Those over seventeen may find it embarrassing, or even offensive, but the kids do not.

[whmurray]

Originally Posted by JShultz89

Its a good concept but there should be an easy way to restrict particular functions on the iPhone to protect some children.

"Easy?" Really? Effective, perhaps. There is an effective way. It is called "parental involvement." It is not easy but it is very satisfying.



(I have written a longer answer that I would be happy to share by private mail. However, it is arguable and I do not want to divert the thread down that path.)

"One iPod Touch per child."

[cpdh]

You can restrict functions in OS 3.0! just a note.

[whmurray]

My niece, Sydney, 10, and her brother, Jeremy, 12, will be starting new schools in September. Sydney will be studying French and Jeremy, Spanish. Last week we went to the App Store to see what we could find. For Sydney we found the Free French Tutor. This was only one of half a dozen free programs for studying French. She loves it. I got 95 while she got 100. It will not help her get good grades in French in school but it will help her learn French.

Jeremy was glad to find an equal number of programs for Spanish.

Does it get better than this?

[Alli]

I wish I could provide a Touch for all my students. There are lots of great flashcard apps. And in many cases, as with the textbook I teach from, you can put the entire text and all ancillary materials on the device.

It would be nice to offer them, and allow any student receiving an A or B to keep them.

[whmurray]

Originally Posted by Alli

I wish I could provide a Touch for all my students. There are lots of great flashcard apps. And in many cases, as with the textbook I teach from, you can put the entire text and all ancillary materials on the device.

It would be nice to offer them, and allow any student receiving an A or B to keep them.

When Nicole was tiny, she had a Texas Instrument Toy called "Speak n' Math." I could hear it as a sort of background noise "Ten correct, none wrong." There was never anything wrong. It took me a while to understand that it had a "repeat mode." If she did not immediately know the right answer, she would simply repeat the prompt until she did. When the machine repeated the problem over and over, I kept expecting a note of impatience to creep into the prompt. Part of the beauty was that the machine would repeat the problem over and over as many times as required. It never became impatient and it never changed the question.

It is not simply that the machine mimics flash cards but that it does so with infinite patience. I could never resist the temptation to help by asking a variant of the question; this invariably simply confused the child. There are some things that we are simply too sophisticated to do well.

All that said, Alli, you get it. You understand the point. The problem is that you see scarcity where there is plenty. Compared to an iPod, "Speak n' Math" was really stupid, big, and expensive. Not only can the iPod teach simple arithmetic, but reading, spelling, and foreign language. Where Speak n' Math had one routine, the iPod can have tens of thousands. We call that "plenty." The cost of a routine is so cheap that the App Store prices many as "free."

Check out "Free French Tutor." We just need a tiny bit of hardware to instantiate it on. The hardware would be expensive if all it could do was teach French. On the other hand, if it can teach an infinite number of things, then its cost per thing is de minimus.

"One iPod Touch per child." It is so cheap that we cannot afford not to do it. Computers are better at teaching four year-olds to read than schools are at teaching six year-olds to read. "Reader Rabbit" is expensive because we spread the development cost over too few kids. The developer does it once but millions of kids use it over and over. The price per kid becomes vanishingly small. Have you seen an iPod Shuffle? How much will a Touch cost in five years. How many Touches can I buy for the cost of a teacher? What happens when the cost of replicating a library approaches that of printing a library card? One can equip a whole class with Touches for less than $10K. How much will that be five years from now? How many teachers or desks can one buy for $10K? How much will they cost five years from now?