Oh, but you are missing the entire point of that part of that 
project. It was specifically made to be difficult to control so the 
kids would say "wow, this is difficult to control", and we say "yeah, 
that's because you made a race car. There are no gears between the 
steering wheel and the front wheels of your car". And they say 
"what's a gear?" and we say, "see that little triangle after the word 
'heading', click on it". They do and then for the first time in their 
lives, they get to see why division might be useful by dividing the 
number coming out of 'heading' by 3 or 4".

The whole idea of good learning environments is to avoid as many 
gratuitous difficulties as possible, but to specifically introduce 
just the difficulties that will motivate appropriate learning.

This is why we have worked with literally thousands of children now 
since 1973 or so. BTW, the "drive a car" etoy is specifically aimed 
at children from about 8 years old and older. There are numerous 
projects suitable for younger children, but they have different aims. 
Each developmental stage of children allows them to do different 
kinds of thinking, and you have to take that into account when you 
design etoys for them (and when you bring children to them). There 
are a number of examples on Squeakland.org, and there will be many 
more over the next few weeks and months.

For those of you who have very young children, you are much better 
off having them start to learn to build things with their hands. Most 
computers are not equipped with enough tactile feedback to be great 
learning environments for very young children.

A great book to read for those who are interested is "Towards a 
Theory of Instruction" by Jerome Bruner. It doesn't talk about 
computers but it is one of the best books about designing good 
educational environments for children of various ages.  Last year I 
wrote a chapter for a book about kindergarten that discusses the 
suitability of computers for 3 and 4 year olds. This will also go 
online sometime this summer.

Cheers,

Alan

-----

At 4:51 AM +0100 4/30/01, John Hinsley wrote:
>Lex Spoon wrote:
>>
>>  Steve Wart <thecows at home.com> wrote:
>>  > Had an interesting session with my son today. Played around in the
>>  > scripting world for over an hour - I think that's the longest he's ever
>>  > sat still at the computer.
>>  >
>>  > He loves the car, but steering is pretty hopeless (I can't get the hang
>>  > of it either :). He liked it when I changed the colors. Usually he wants
>>  > to do things himself, but I think he realized changing colors was too
>>  > finicky for him. The color picker is pretty though. It would be nice to
>>  > see more like this.
>>
>>  Have you tried "gearing down" the stearing wheel: dividing the amount in
>>  the "turn by" command by 3 (or so) ?  It makes it much easier.  :)
>
>Yes! I think only an 8 year old with the reactions and skill of the late
>great Ayrton Senna could keep the car on the track with its original
>settings.
>
>I think one of the greatest things we can do to improve our programs
>(and our programming skills) might be to have young children (and aged
>relatives) act as human programming interfaces. I'm sure most adults
>(and most "real" programmers) get too carried away with the beauty of
>the code to adequately consider the underlying metaphors: we really need
>"untainted" brains to show us the way. (Not, incidentally, that I
>consider myself a "real" programmer -- an adult, maybe.)
>
>Maybe Steve could try my Rolodex Tutorial out on his son in 2 or 3 years
>time?
>
>Cheers
>
>John
>>
>>  Overall, thanks for sharing your experiences -- I've found them an
>>  interesting read!
>>
>>  -Lex
>
>--
>******************************************************************************
>Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?"
>Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft."
>******************************************************************************