For those of you, who are concerned about your kids' screen addiction, here is some good news:
You can now harvest your kids' screen addiction to good use, i.e., to teach them programming.
No, it is not an "educational toy", that kids will readily toss away, on receiving as a gift.
The problem with "educational toys" is that, learning is embedded, which instantly disinterest kids, but learning needs to be emergent, i.e., emerging out of an experience and in this case, playing a game.
Cargo Bot is a super-cool iPad app., where learning programming is emergent, by playing.
It is like any other game, with levels and reward with incentives. What is different with Cargo Bot, is that, there is zero-effort to "teach" the kids. Instead, learning happens automatically, by virtue of kids, graduating to different levels and earning 1,2 or 3-stars.
My kids, 10 and 8, played around with this game and got hooked to it. I tried it as well and I played/solved a game/problem in the Impossible category, which the app. recognized as an unknown solution and encouraged me to upload the solution to YouTube.
CargoBot must be made mandatory in the elementary school curriculum as tinkering would be finally introduced in a structured manner in School.
Emergent Learning Games are a great way to harvest kids' screen addiction.
You can now harvest your kids' screen addiction to good use, i.e., to teach them programming.
No, it is not an "educational toy", that kids will readily toss away, on receiving as a gift.
The problem with "educational toys" is that, learning is embedded, which instantly disinterest kids, but learning needs to be emergent, i.e., emerging out of an experience and in this case, playing a game.
Cargo Bot is a super-cool iPad app., where learning programming is emergent, by playing.
It is like any other game, with levels and reward with incentives. What is different with Cargo Bot, is that, there is zero-effort to "teach" the kids. Instead, learning happens automatically, by virtue of kids, graduating to different levels and earning 1,2 or 3-stars.
My kids, 10 and 8, played around with this game and got hooked to it. I tried it as well and I played/solved a game/problem in the Impossible category, which the app. recognized as an unknown solution and encouraged me to upload the solution to YouTube.
CargoBot must be made mandatory in the elementary school curriculum as tinkering would be finally introduced in a structured manner in School.
Emergent Learning Games are a great way to harvest kids' screen addiction.
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