There and Back Again

Minecraft on Xbox 360. My son is on the left and I am on the right. I am looking at his pet Iron Golem (he told me his name, but I cannot remember it now) As mentioned , my son watches many Minecraft videos on YouTube. During this December holidays, we have given him more time to play games on the iPad and Xbox. He is going to start Primary One in one week's time so we have been closing one eye to his game playing time (though I do drag him to the bookshop, to swimming and test his spelling once in a while). Nowadays, my son wants me to join him in his Minecraft games- both on the iPad and the Xbox. I have to admit that he is better at this game than him. He creates really amazing worlds in his games. I am really humbled when I see his creations.  He has named himself '8469 tryert'. His first online screen name / user name. I am looking at a trap he build. Unsuspecting villagers will walk and fall into the lava pit. He's a devious boy. He h...

My son has always been an avid Youtube viewer. I know some people frown on kids using any handheld devices. I addressed this in a previous blog . But of course, you cannot allow uncontrolled access on media like YouTube - there are simply too many adults who swear freely on their videos. When users criticise them on their use of profanities, they point out that Youtube is only available for 13+ users - as if it is okay for a 13 year old to use the 'f' word. As a parent, we need to try to fight back against these people and only allow safe videos for our children. Let's see what sort of things parents can do to help make YouTube safe for our children. Create a family account Create a Google family account so that you can control the account and us it to login YouTube. Once you have done that, you can create playlists, monitor the videos they watch and control who communicates with them. Only allow them to create their own accounts when they are older, preferably when t...

Optimus Prime I took my son out of childcare this Monday to bring him out for a day of fun. I know I will never do this when he is in Primary school, but since this is only Kindergarten, it is alright. My wife also took leave, and we had planned to go somewhere together. At first we wanted to go to LegoLand, but decided otherwise because we already had a LegoLand trip planned in December. It seemed to excessive to go there now. Anyway, I decided that we needed to go see the Transformers exhibition. We had sort of missed it when we were in Macau in June. When I said 'we', I mean my son and me. I had to go off in the middle of that trip because I was busy with my school's holiday programme and I did not stay behind to bring him to visit the exhibition. As you can guess, my wife's motivation to go to see Transformers is zero (actually, her motivation to see the things Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones is zero as well). Needless to say, she was very h...

Recently, a friend's blog mentioned about her trying out some audio books when she and her children were travelling in a car. That struck a chord with me. I am very busy with life, yet I want to read books. So what I have done is to subscribe to blinklist (a service that summarises books) and Audiophile (a audiobook seller). Thus far, I have been enjoyed my short summaries and listening to books being read out loud while I am driving. This friend's post got me thinking that since it worked for her, I can try getting an audiobook for my son so that he can listen to stories in the car. It is good for him to practise his listening comprehension skills, as well as to listen to crisp spoken English. The book I chose to buy was 'The Book with No Pictures' by BJ Novak (writer and producer of The Office). It was an excellent book and since there are 'no pictures', it works perfectly fine as an audiobook. The book was real good and my son was very tickled by the ...

The kids playing Xbox 360 The other day, I chanced upon my son's Minecraft game. He had this underground home that was unbelievable. It had doors, a library and other things that a house might have. I was very impressed. After all, he is only six. I never thought that a six year old would actually build a library. I know he has been watching Minecraft videos, but I did not realise that learns anything from these videos. So today, I thought I wanted to take a look at his 'world'. He was swimming with his buddies (the children of my wife's friend) so I took the iPad and opened the game. I could not find his underground home, so I searched for it by entering a nearby hole. But I could not find it. Needless to say, I continued to poke around, hoping to find it. Eventually, I went deeper and deeper underground. And I got lost. And I fell into lava. Because it was set in creative mode, my avatar was not killed by lava. Instead I got stuck. Then I panicked. I spend t...

Lucas with his mum's iPad mini Recently, an article appeared in one of the Facebook pages I liked that I found disturbing. The author of this article (which I will not link to - call me biased, but I do not want such ideas to be perpetuated) was totally against the idea of handhelds for children under the age of 12. I was really surprised by this - I do teach in a school that has children under 12 and we do use the iPads in the classrooms. Nevertheless, I clicked the article and read it (I always force myself to read articles that go against my own beliefs because I think it creates a critical mind). I realised that some of the arguments she listed were actually false dichotomies - they did not allow for alternate reasonings. She argues that handhelds delay development probably because the children do not move and exercise while watching or playing games on the handheld. It is a good point, but in another part of the article, she notes down that children below 12 can safely ...

Some parents dislike their children using a smartphone or a tablet. They think that their children are spoiling their eyes, or wasting their time inside the house rather than going doing outdoor play. While their concerns are valid, I do believe that technology can play a part in our children's education. Technology, in moderation, and especially guided by an adult can be very useful in helping our children learn. Voice Changer There are two apps I found quite useful in helping my son spell. One of them is called Voice Changer.  What you can do with it is to ask your child to spell the word and record it using the app. Once it has been saved, your child can press the icons to modify his voice. Your child can make himself sound like a mouse, a ghost, with helium and so on. It is definitely lots of fun to experiment with all the different voices! The constant listening to the audio recording of the word being spelt in a fun way really helps him to remember the word. You can use...