When I think back to using the Apple ][ lab in elementary school, four pieces of software come immediately to mind, as vividly as if I’d just run them this morning:
1) Rocky’s Boots - Taught the fundamentals of digital electronics and Boolean logic.
2) Lemonade Stand - Taught the basics of supply and demand economics.
3) Logo - Taught the basics of functional programming, and maybe even a little geometry.
4) Mario Bros - OK, I brought this disk in from home.
Plumbers aside, that seems like pretty deep stuff for K-6. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say those programs affected the course of my life permanently. It’s been years since I’ve even thought about educational software. I assume it still exists. How does it stack up?
None of the educational software I’ve come into contact with is anything like the stuff I used as a kid. “Educational software” in my day (mid-to-late-80s) were slimmed down versions of real applications and games, tuned to help you learn a specific discipline. LOGO, of course, was ubiquitous. If you were really lucky, you’d get to control the actual turtle instead of just the on-screen arrow!
I used to think educational software was a bit poor—I was emersed in a world of actual programming, using real DTP packages and playing proper games—but in hindsight it was actually pretty good. The games covered a range of different genre and were predominately designed to help with logical thinking and problem-solving, but there were also desktop publishing apps, spreadsheets, word processors and drawing tools (all of which were easy to pick up and explore as a seven year old—the same can’t necessarily be said for a copy of Excel).
I’m pretty unconvinced by what’s out there now, especially on the Mac (where most of it seems to have been written for Mac OS 7 or 8 or so and Carbonised). Lots of focus on basic stuff that kids should be getting taught anyway (telling the time, counting, spelling, etc.), but not so much on the things which encourage you to think and solve problems, which is something you can’t really teach.
