Educational Software, Chalk Boards and Watercolour Painting
by Michael Kappel
Article by Aspex Software
Twenty years past children's educational software was a luxury item which educational establishments did not budget for. Now it is just a normal routine part of the learning resources found in any school. During that time many new packages of children's educational software have been hailed as the next 'must have' for schools, but have been relegated to the back of the store cupboard in a matter of months.
Very few educational software packages have been found to have a lasting relevance and usefulness, but Aspex has created educational software which children find just as fresh and interesting as they did fifteen years ago! That is because our software encourages kids to have fun while they gain and refine skills which are vital in today's world. Such skills include mouse control, moving and handling on-screen graphics, budgeting money, and thinking up design ideas, all of which are fast becoming abilities necessary for making a living today.
To survive and prosper in this ever changing world, at various periods of history and in diverse cultural settings, requires completely different sets of skills and know how. To make a living in the wild, as shown by Bear Grylls on TV, requires skills like making fire by rubbing sticks together, and knowing which plants have roots that are edible and which ones will kill you. But that kind of know how will not help you one bit when dining at the Savoy Grill, in that case you need to know how to read the carte du jour, which cutlery to use for each course and how to handle it!
Kids education is at least partly about learning what you need to know to survive, and at any single time and place people will generally agree on what kids need to learn. Thus, well-born young women in Victorian England were taught to be lady-like, the important skills for them were watercolour painting, playing an instrument, singing, reciting and embroidery. These things were the needful accomplishments for attracting a suitable husband eg RICH! The study of science, Chemistry or Mathematics was regarded as quite unseemly for a Lady and therefore girls were never taught these subjects.
I first went to school in the Dark Ages of the late 1950's, and embroidery was still an important part of the curriculum for girls. I can also remember we were given a slate and a piece of chalk for writing lessons while I was an Infant in a village school in Scotland, (and I haven't got my bus pass yet!). There have been vast technological changes in the classroom since then! In the twenty-first century the first thing children meets in the classroom is the omnipresent school computer with all its potential for learning, kids educational software programs, school websites and of course, games. Nowadays children don't just learn to write, they even publish their own books!
The computer and its software are now foundational to our children's learning and education whether they are at school or at home. However what they can learn by using the computer is heavily influenced by the quality of the software and web-based content that the child encounters.
Aspex aims to produce relevant high quality children's educational software products and this has enabled us to create four genuinely content-free, open ended, cross-curricular design software for children, Spex for designing rooms in a house, Spexworlds! which makes it easy to design a house and other places, tabs for 3D shapes, nets and modeling, and lastly Shapes and Nets a program for school children to investigate 2D shapes and 3D shapes.
A child using one of these educational software packages can use their own creativity to make a personal and unique design, perhaps a kitchen layout or a model of a rocket. Meanwhile the learning element just happens while children are having fun!
All the educational software mentioned in this article can be found at http://www.aspexsoftware.com
About the Author
Aspex Software develops children's educational software and has been supplying to schools and home users since 1994. We design our software so that the learning element just happens while children are having fun! http://www.aspexsoftware.com
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Educational Software Enhances Kid’s IT Skills
by ruiwen
Article by Aspex Software
The education our children are receiving at school includes academic subjects such as maths and history, science and literature, and also more practical subjects, like textiles, working with materials such as wood, art, food and cooking, childcare, IT and business studies.
A recent survey has found that more than three-quarters of parents are sure that school does not equip young people adequately to enter the jobs market. They believe that more emphasis should be given to vocational subjects.
Most children will not end up as Oxford Dons, and many youngsters soon discover that they possess not much gifting for the intellectual side of life. Nevertheless everyone can be good at something and the process of education should uncover what that something is. Less academically inclined kids often have other talents, for instance a child may have an instinctive 'way' with animals or young children, in which case perhaps they may find fulfilment in looking after horses in a stable, or maybe working in a veterinary practise as an animal nurse or as a nursery nurse. They may have 'green' fingers' and be budding gardeners and horticulturalists. They may have real artistic ability, or an 'ear' for music in which case it makes sense to aim for a life as an artist, as a craftperson or in entertainment.
The survey by Skillfast UK revealed that the overwhelming majority of mums and dads wanted teachers to be more in touch with the business world. Business can consist of anything from selling socks to renting out apartments in Hawaii to selling educational software. Common to all businesses in the third millennium is that at the centre of the enterprise is the computer, and so the majority of businesses are dependent on good IT skills.
Schools give children the chance to acquire and improve their IT skills from an early age. Children's educational software such as Spex used at school helps kids to learn dexterity when handling a mouse, and enables them to play around with and learn to manipulate computer graphics. It also helps them to realise that price and costs must be taken into account in a project, displays a very simple spreadsheet (http://www.aspexsoftware.com/spex_charts.htm) and shows them how that can help to calculate costs. And of course, controlling costs is a matter of great importance for any business person.
Equally, educational software like the easy 3D software, tabs from Aspex demonstrates to children that computers can be excellent as design tools, and not only for designing but also actually manufacturing and making a product. Tabs enables children to design and manufacture models from 3D shapes (http://www.aspexsoftware.com/tabs_shapes.htm) easily and quickly eg boxes and simple models like buildings and space rockets. Children get some basic experience of how things are done these days in the commercial world.
Educational software that children can regularly play with at home and at school helps them feel relaxed about their ability with computers and IT generally. Kids begin to understand the power of computers and technology to make a difference to everyday life, and computers become a normal part of the child's mental picture of the world. Kids will as a matter of course turn to the internet when they need to research something, or buy something, or look up their friends. By this time the computer has become their friend, an everyday tool rather than a stranger and a tool of last resort.
Aspex Software has put much research and consideration into Kids educational software products which has resulted in four genuinely content-free, open ended, cross-curricular design software packages for children; Spex, children's educational software (http://www.aspexsoftware.com/spex.htm) for designing rooms in a house, Spexworlds! which is a dream to design a house and other places, tabs easy 3D software (http://www.aspexsoftware.com/tabs.htm) for nets and modeling, and Shapes and Nets a program for children to investigate 2D shapes and 3D shapes.
Our educational software programs (http://www.aspexsoftware.com) inspire children to discover hidden design talents to make a personal and unique design, perhaps a kitchen layout or a model of a rocket. Learning valuable new skills is effortless, while the child is enjoying the experience.
About the Author
Aspex Software has put much research and consideration into Kids educational software products which has resulted in four genuinely content-free, open ended, cross-curricular design software products.
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