Baby’s first smartphone

[Tyr]

Are kids going to be growing up with technology overload?

If the LeapFrog toy company has its way, texting will soon join reading, writing and arithmetic as a staple of early childhood eduction. Starting in June, the company will begin selling a BlackBerry-like toy called the Text & Learn. The device is aimed at tots and features a full keyboard, calendar, LCD screen, and texting capacity. The big difference between the $25 Text & Learn and the several-hundred-dollar gadgets for grown-ups that inspired it is that it connects to a fake internet browser where preschoolers can exchange texts with a digital puppy named Scout whose five preprogrammed text messages include “Hi! We’re out of puppy biscuits. Thanks!” and “Let’s meet up later to play some fetch!”

 

[talloola]

Seems 'neat' to me, I like that idea, they will have to expand the message department, as the little one will get bored with it, if there isn't enough of them.
As a little kid I had stuffed dolls my mom made, little cars that
you pushed around in the dirt, and a trycycle that was second hand.

 

[Tyr]

Seems 'neat' to me, I like that idea, they will have to expand the message department, as the little one will get bored with it, if there isn't enough of them.
As a little kid I had stuffed dolls my mom made, little cars that
you pushed around in the dirt, and a trycycle that was second hand.

welll.... I just had the dirt part, but the rest sounds like fun :lol:

 

[hermanntrude]

when i were young, we got up at half past midnight, half an hour before we went to bed, licked the road clean with our tongues, ate a bowl of cold poison, went to the mill where we paid for the honour of working there, came home again and our dad would kill us in cold blood and dance around on our graves.

And you tell kids nowadays that... and they won't believe you

 

[talloola]

when i were young, we got up at half past midnight, half an hour before we went to bed, licked the road clean with our tongues, ate a bowl of cold poison, went to the mill where we paid for the honour of working there, came home again and our dad would kill us in cold blood and dance around on our graves.

And you tell kids nowadays that... and they won't believe you

what a shame!!!!;-)

 

[talloola]

welll.... I just had the dirt part, but the rest sounds like fun :lol:

I loved playing in the dirt, then when I was grown and had my own yard, I
still loved it, so I became an avid gardner, had to figure out something that
would prevent people coming and taking me away in a straight jacket in a little
white van, as the little car 'thing' had to go.

 

[darkbeaver]

Last night Ideas CBC radio was about screwing up kids early with expectations of performance. Letting them run wild has been found the best way. My childhood was glorious excavations in the backyard like a mole glorious excavations in the snow which was very deep in those days, brooks ponds drowning worms cooking little brook trout alive stealing apples and cherrys, I never had to learn anything, it bothers me to see children getting pushed into the eight to five crap before they're five. The Leap Frog Toy Company should be burned to the ground and the owners run out of town.

 

[VanIsle]

Are kids going to be growing up with technology overload?

If the LeapFrog toy company has its way, texting will soon join reading, writing and arithmetic as a staple of early childhood eduction. Starting in June, the company will begin selling a BlackBerry-like toy called the Text & Learn. The device is aimed at tots and features a full keyboard, calendar, LCD screen, and texting capacity. The big difference between the $25 Text & Learn and the several-hundred-dollar gadgets for grown-ups that inspired it is that it connects to a fake internet browser where preschoolers can exchange texts with a digital puppy named Scout whose five preprogrammed text messages include “Hi! We’re out of puppy biscuits. Thanks!” and “Let’s meet up later to play some fetch!”

I have grandchildren that live for their DS lites. You can hardly talk to them because their heads are buried into the thing they carry everywhere and I'm talking kids that are age 11 down to age 6. They are at my house two days a week and they have brought the PS3 over here so they won't be bored! They don't want to go outside and play. They get bored with TV and they want the computers so when I won't let them use the computers, it's the DS or the PS. We went to our grandson's hockey game. His sister was sitting playing with her DS because she doesn't like the game. Some kid way up behind us in the stands noticed this 6 yr. old with a DS and he was texting her. I look on Facebook and I see my 10 yr. old g.niece writing stuff I don't think she should be into (her brother too). I don't like it at all. Kids are losing any and all social skills and they are blobs because they no longer play outside or even inside. I think my grandkids are too skinny because they won't take time to eat a proper meal. To bring on even more is sick. We live in a sick society where even marriages are breaking down because of this thing I sit here typing on. Kids have started to believe they cannot leave home without a cell phone attached to them. Too many parents believe (wrongly) that it is keeping their children safe. It is helping their children lie to them.

 

[talloola]

Last night Ideas CBC radio was about screwing up kids early with expectations of performance. Letting them run wild has been found the best way. My childhood was glorious excavations in the backyard like a mole glorious excavations in the snow which was very deep in those days, brooks ponds drowning worms cooking little brook trout alive stealing apples and cherrys, I never had to learn anything, it bothers me to see children getting pushed into the eight to five crap before they're five. The Leap Frog Toy Company should be burned to the ground and the owners run out of town.

They don't have to be pushed, I have a 7 yr old grandson who is a whiz on the
computer and computer games, but he also does all the things you say you did,
and they are all his choice, and he plays soccer and does gymnastics, he has
lots of mental/physical energy, and no one ever makes him do any of it, he
shows interest, and it isn't kept away from him, they don't deny him the
opportunity to learn lots of things.

 

[darkbeaver]

I have grandchildren that live for their DS lites. You can hardly talk to them because their heads are buried into the thing they carry everywhere and I'm talking kids that are age 11 down to age 6. They are at my house two days a week and they have brought the PS3 over here so they won't be bored! They don't want to go outside and play. They get bored with TV and they want the computers so when I won't let them use the computers, it's the DS or the PS. We went to our grandson's hockey game. His sister was sitting playing with her DS because she doesn't like the game. Some kid way up behind us in the stands noticed this 6 yr. old with a DS and he was texting her. I look on Facebook and I see my 10 yr. old g.niece writing stuff I don't think she should be into (her brother too). I don't like it at all. Kids are losing any and all social skills and they are blobs because they no longer play outside or even inside. I think my grandkids are too skinny because they won't take time to eat a proper meal. To bring on even more is sick. We live in a sick society where even marriages are breaking down because of this thing I sit here typing on. Kids have started to believe they cannot leave home without a cell phone attached to them. Too many parents believe (wrongly) that it is keeping their children safe. It is helping their children lie to them.

The doctor from boston on Ideas said much the same as you just have Islandpacific. One other thing that's been reported is that western children are very uncreative now, TV been killing us for years.

 

[darkbeaver]

They don't have to be pushed, I have a 7 yr old grandson who is a whiz on the
computer and computer games, but he also does all the things you say you did,
and they are all his choice, and he plays soccer and does gymnastics, he has
lots of mental/physical energy, and no one ever makes him do any of it, he
shows interest, and it isn't kept away from him, they don't deny him the
opportunity to learn lots of things.

The doctor said the early pushing was actually responsible for poorer outcomes later on. A friend of mine has a fouteen year old son who has very high mechanical apptitude and has already six or seven years experiance. He's got four more years of school before he can get to a tech school. In the old days when you displayed the aptitude you could be apprenticed into the particular field that you had already become interested and engaged in. The high school environment offers no advantage at all to that advanced student who has already made a career choice who would do very well in a more science specific structure exactly because he is a natural practicioner of physics already. His parents are worried because the boy is bored with school and can think about nothing except his machines so four more years of that torture isn't going to serve him well.

 

[talloola]

I don't believe in 'pushing' anyone to do anything, but you seem to be saying that
you hold back the capability to learn, and that is not how people advanced from the
early days that were very primitive.
I would be much more concerned about the many children who are 'not' learning,
the numbers are high, we do not have that problem with kids like my grandson
or anyone else, who have children who are eager to learn many things.
It's the ones who are left behind, and pushed through without accomplishing enough, the ones who have no interest, not motivation, no energy, and just drift
through school, without picking up much of anything.
It is the responsibility of 'parents' to guide their children through school, ensuring
that they complete their studies, and use their time efficiently.
And learning institutions must change and progress to accomodate all students,
including those who are advanced.