Wish that I had done it sooner..

A while ago now, I set Kylee up with her own computer. It’s not bad and is actually my old production machine.She picked up on how to use the mouse very quickly, manoeuvring it around with her right hand while using her left to click on it. You should try it.. very difficult, but she was doing it so adeptly.

So, one day, I was surfing through hardware websites and I came across keyboards and mice suitable for kids and noticed that one or two keyboards had built in trackballs. A good idea, yes, but as Kylee was doing so well, I drifted over them.

Just recently, I visited somebody who had a Logitech Trackball laying idle, and it got me thinking again. I asked if I could borrow it with a view to seeing how Kylee would get along with it, and I was offered it to keep for free.

I came back home, connected it and showed it to her. She seemed unimpressed at the time, but after she saw me do some updates on her computer, and decided to try it out for herself. Amazingly, she is now using the computer more than she has ever done.

She has developed a method of cupping the front leading edge in her right hand while using her left hand index finger to click on stuff. Now she can move the pointer with unerring accuracy and clicks away on her games like a pro. She still asks me to come look at what she is doing but now hardly requires any assistance to get her out of messes caused by trying to negotiate the screen with a regular mouse.

She has even taken to teaching her younger cousin how to use it. In case you don’t know what a trackball is…

This is the Logitech T-CM14 Marble Mouse, a PS/2 connected two button type. Newer versions of this have four buttons which could introduce problems, and I think that it would be best to disable two of them in the mouse control panel or give them the same function as the main buttons.

Kylee’s JK teacher teaches her songs, dance, and the normal education given at Junior Kindergarten. I am no expert in that field, but what I can do is introduce her to technology, get her beyond the fear that some have with it.

If you think that your child/grandchild would benefit from one of the above, they are available new for around $30 or just like the one above for maybe $18 on eBay. Trust me, they are worth every last cent.

Kylee is good at the games I have installed, but she also tells me when things are not right. She has been around me fixing computers and her own use of a computer to know when the computer is not doing what she knows that it should. How is that for just four years old, eh..

She even complains about slowness sometimes and she has a pretty good dual core, 4gb machine which can run high end games way above the stresses that Purble Place puts on the machine. I guess that I will have to upgrade her to a quad core for her fifth birthday.

Looking back at my life at four, I struggled to get a clockwork train to traverse the lounge floor, let alone have any real grasp of how it worked. 

Kylee goes to school..

Just Junior Kindergarten for now (three days, two days over two weeks), the age when school is fun and one makes new friends daily. She is growing up quickly now, and it will not be long before peer influence starts to show.

For sure, I will miss seeing her on a daily basis throughout the week, but we all have to learn to learn, not just academics but how to co-exist and work as an individual and as a team.

I can honestly say that I am amazed at how quickly kids pick up on what we do. I am sure that I was never as aware of my surroundings.

This is Kylee shopping in the local mall’s Dollar store. See how she examines products before depositing them into the basket. There was a time when she would see cookies, and just drop them in. Now she studies each pack. This photo was not posed and she was not aware that my cellphone had photo ability, by the way.

At  little under four years of age, I don’t remember ever doing this. Maybe I wasn’t allowed to pick stuff, or I just wasn’t interested enough. I do know that Kylee was putting the same amount of care into product selection as she does with everything else, which is why I think that she is so remarkable.

She has an old head on her at times, but equally displays the fun and exuberance one would expect from somebody so young.

And yes, we bought everything that she put in her basket.. and no, she didn’t buy the whole store, just a few carefully selected items..

Learning to use a computer..

A few months ago, I set up a computer for Kylee to use. I had a spare desktop type kicking around, and it seemed a shame to waste it. A laptop would have been good but desktop keyboards and mice are more robust.

She had shown interest in what I was doing on mine and was always eager to ‘help’ me fix client computers, so that is why she has full use of her ‘own’ now. The computer is not too bad at all, a 64-bit system running XP for a short while until I installed Windows 7. There is a suite of games called Purble Place, ideal for Kylee to cut her teeth in the use of a keyboard and mouse.

Even using a laptop mouse, Kylee still uses it two handed and it is amazing to watch her complete online jigsaw puzzles, play the Dora games I bought for it, go through the Purble Place games, make up pictures in Microsoft Paint. I can take credit only for introducing her to computers. The rest is all hers. I only have to show her once, and she is good to go from there on.

Kylee can even tell when all is not well with the computer, and will either reboot it or ask me for my opinion. She will be a guiding force for other children when she goes to school and I hope that they have Windows 7 at her first school. Kylee will advise the IT department on where they should be heading re hardware and software.

Oh, and she knows how to print pictures off too. Soon, she will have her own email ID which I will add to my account. Typing out coherent messages are presently beyond her ability, but it will not be too long before she can do it, and the email ID will be ready and waiting.

Some might think that the above is excessive, but I don’t. Nothing is too much for Kylee, space and finances permitting.