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Diversifying my Kids Computing experience

Posted February 22nd, 2009 by Josh No Comments »

My eldest daughter has started developing an interest in using computers and the Internet. She quite often asks to play games on one of her favorite websites on my laptop.
This has started becoming a more regular occurence, so I decided that I would re-instate an old laptop that I had lying around and set it up for the kids.

The machine is quite old so wouldn’t be particularly speedy running Windows, so an idea struck me, I could install may favorite linux distro of choice, Ubuntu; not only would this run better on the old laptop but would also give my kids a different view of computers than most of their friends will get just using Windows.

I’m hoping that giving my kids this different view of computers will help them have a better understanding of computers in the future.

One of my problems with computing in schools is thatfor example, kids arn’t taught how to Word Process, they are taught how to use Microsoft Word, this goes for using the OS itself as well.
I’m a realist enough to know that this is the way things are due to Microsofts Dominance of the market, but I’d like my kids to be able to have a different perspective on how computers can be used

I’m no Microsoft hater, I’d just like my kids to make their own decisions on these things and by giving them a choice, I hope enable them to do that.