I guess this is somewhat motivated by the "Squeak for beginners" thread,
but it's also a bit of a rant about the state of technology. Sorry about
the length.

Squeak has a lot of promise for education, but I think I'd like my kids
(23 mos & 3 years old) to learn to read a bit better before I start them
programming. I also think PCs (i.e. hobbyist computers) are way too
frustrating to learn anything on unless you are strongly motivated (e.g.
economic necessity or a pathological obsession with gadgets).

But for some reason I feel inclined to sit my kids in front of the
computer every so often and see what they can figure out.

Unfortunately, whenever I sit my kids down in front of a computer game,
they are almost immediately frustrated by clicking on *something* that
takes them out of the "mode" of the game. Maybe I'm the one who's
frustrated, and their idea of what they are trying to accomplish is
different than mine (but hey, I'm the adult and I want to explain what's
fun to me, which doesn't necessarily include dismantling my computer).

e.g. Someone suggested I check out a "Caillou" web page for kids - it's
pretty cute, there is a little keyboard, familiar graphics (aka
"branding"), and lots of jazzy sounds. Unfortunately, you must click on
the alphabetic keys to make a sound. A 2-year-old is not really inclined
to click on the alphabetic keys any more than the numeric keys, the
"function" keys or any other nearby button. Which makes the game pretty
pointless. Also things that require fine motor control (i.e. "drag and
drop") are not going to work. They get a bigger kick out of MS Word with
the font size set to 72 points.

[My pet peeve is the "Windows" key - it seems untrappable, and once it's
pushed, it seems that all UI events are sent to the "Start" button,
which is rather idiotic. I suppose I could buy a Mac or switch to Linux,
but it's probably easier just to pry the damn things off the keyboard.]

There are some interesting patterns in watching what they pick up -- for
example, it takes a few sessions for them to make the connection between
the mouse and keyboard and activity on the screen. I want to go slowly,
so they can get the hang of the basic motor skills, then back off the
"governor" as they start to understand some of the more complex elements
of the environment (this way they can show me stuff that I can't figure
out for myself).

So what I'd like to do is put something together that they can bash on
without "hurting" things. Maybe hook up some sound and graphics to the
keyboard and the mouse, put Squeak into fullscreen mode and let them go
at it. There are certain practical difficulties (not the least of which
is that they will probably both want to be doing this at the same time).

These are some technical issues that leap to mind,

-- the above mentioned "windows" key; is there a way to disable this in
software?
-- the morphic halos (I seem to recall there is a way to turn these off)
-- the F2 key brings up "VM Preferences"

Maybe there are others that I need to know about? Squeak looks like the
best thing ever for this kind of project - these problems are pretty
minor. Any suggestions on content (sounds, animations, graphics) that I
could incorporate? I suppose I could grab some stuff off the web. I have
some games that were developed in Flash (surprise, by Disney no less),
but they suffer from some of the problems above (e.g. pet peeve #2 -
whenever they hit the space bar the so-called interactive storybook goes
back to the main menu - the tiny little arrow keys take you from one
page to the next, which do you think a 2 year old is more likely to
hit?).

It would be really great if Disney had some content developed especially
for Squeak - that would go a huge distance to generate interest. Things
kids can take apart. And put back together. I'm not really sure what
that means yet, but I'm pretty sure that Squeak content is different
from Web content.

Is it FlashPlayerMorph I should be looking at?

Cheers,
Steve